Sensei
by The Sage of Toads
Summary: (A sidestory to Senpai: A Story of Good Friends) People often remark about the unluckiness of Ataru Moroboshi, but if anything he is only number two. Ryuunosuke Fujinami, whose bleak fortunes are bent around a moron father and a world that doesn't want to see her as a girl, finally gets the chance to embrace her femininity... but the price may be more than she bargained for.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Urusei Yatsura is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and AnimEigo. Support the official release, or don't… because _holy shit._

 **Sensei  
** **A Urusei Yatsura Story  
** **Chapter 1/?**

 **|Green Eyed Monster|**

A new monster had appeared in the vicinity of Tomobiki High School, a neighborhood already plagued by strange and awful forces both demonic and downright alien to the world altogether. This creature, however, was especially ominous–a dark and mysterious fiend that lurked in shadows and called out to young women as they passed it. In almost every circumstance, the woman it called out to fled in terror, driven off by its dark presence.

Tomobiki High School student Miyake Shinobu was the latest to see it. The pretty, brown-haired and dark-eyed girl had been just walking home from another exhausting day of class, when her itinerary took her past a dark alleyway, from which she heard a voice beckon from the shadows.

"You there, young lady in the sailor fuku."

When she turned towards her accoster, she was frightened by the sight that sat in the shadows. A disheveled, misshapen figure among the garbage cans, looking at her through unruly ink-black hair with piercing green eyes that appeared to glow all on their own. At the very sight of the monster, she recoiled with a fright, stepping away from it as it shifted towards her, as if crawling along the ground.

"Would you like to experience Heaven?" The creature asked her.

Miyake Shinobu reacted as she was well-known to do: Picking up a garbage dumpster over her head, she screamed and threw it at the creature, smashing it flat underneath the hundreds of kilograms worth of metal, before running off while shouting about a pervert.

By the next morning, her harrowing encounter had become the talk of the school, when she regaled her classmates of the incident during study break.

"… It was so chilling!" She admitted to her classmates. "I couldn't see all of his face, but I could definitely see his eyes, they were like a cat's… staring into me, through me. I felt like if I stayed there any longer, he was going to kill me!"

"How awful!" One of the random girls in the class said with a shiver.

Another girl agreed. "Makes my skin crawl and I wasn't even there."

Shinobu sighed. "Worse still, even though I threw a dumpster at him, I could still feel his eyes on me as I fled. Even when I got home. Even when I went to bed." She shivered herself. "Even right now."

Luckily for her it wasn't the gaze of her accoster she felt, it was just the gaze of another classmate of hers, her infamous ex-boyfriend, and unluckiest man in the world–who pulled her into a tight embrace.

"There, there, Shinobu, I'm here to protect you," Moroboshi Ataru said as he twice lightly patted the small of her back with one hand, just low enough to make it clear the third pat was going to land much lower. "No pervert's going to lay a finger on you while I'm aro-"

As Ataru lay embedded in the ceiling of the classroom after her uppercut, Shinobu shook her head. "I think he might still be out there. Lying in wait, looking for helpless girls like me."

If it wasn't obvious by this point, girls in Class 2-4 of Tomobiki High School weren't actually helpless. Shinobu in fact could boast she was number three most dangerous girl in the entire school. Were she the sort to consider it a boast.

Directly in front of Shinobu was a vibrant and saccharine girl with hair pink as cotton candy named Ran, who was rather taken by the ominous incident.

"Ooh! It sounds like an Earth horror movie!" Ran, an alien from a far-off world who transferred to Tomobiki despite her attractively human appearance, found herself rather excited by the prospect of a creepy monster running around. She was actually the fourth most dangerous girl in the entire school.

Number two was seated at her desk adjacent to Shinobu, a girl in a boy's uniform who looked the part of the perfect tomboy or extremely effeminate late 70s shounen hero. Fujinami Ryuunosuke huffed in disinterest at the idea as opposed to Ran's excitement. "Feh, that's nothing to get excited about. A guy creeping on girls with killin' intent is worse than any ol' pervert. He might be a bona fide serial killer."

That made Shinobu's chill even worse. "A S-Serial Killer?"

"A serial killer? That sounds absurd. Why would a person want to kill television shows?" That sounded like an incredibly ignorant thing to say, but one could forgive the inquirer as she was also an alien from another planet. The Iridescent-haired, yellow-horned, and blue-eyed beauty was also the most dangerous of the girls in Tomobiki High School: Lum Invader.

Ryuunosuke rolled her eyes. "A serial killer is a guy who kills a buncha people because it satisfies some kind of base need in his messed up head, Lum. They're pretty gruesome people."

Shinobu shivered. "Yeah, they're really scary, because you can never tell if a person could be one until it's too late."

"Then the next thing you know, they become violent and crazy and something terrible happens to you," Ryuunosuke said for added dramatic effect.

Ataru fell from the ceiling, landing on the reclining Ryuunosuke's lap to wrap his arms around her. "Well I guess you can count me as safe, I'd never lay a finger on a pretty girl!"

Ataru this time crashed into the wall between two of the classroom windows, kicked by Ryuunosuke as she shouted, "You're a different kind of monster!"

It was amidst this slapstick and discussion, that a tall, handsome young man waded into the discussion. The class representative of Class 2-4 and multibillionaire dreamboat of Tomobiki High School Mendou Shuutaro was as moved and disturbed by word of Shinobu's plight as anyone else.

"The fact of the matter, however, is that there was a vile predator who sought to assault one of our own," he declared, "For the safety of our school and our community, something must be done to deal with this alleged creep. Yesterday, he accosted Shinobu-san, today it could be any other girl, and tomorrow, it could be Lum-san!"

He turned to Lum, taking her hands in his. "I swear by the honor of the Mendou Family, that I will give my life to protect you, Lum-san."

Ryuunosuke folded her arms behind her head. "Man, doncha think this is something the police should handle?"

Everyone looked at the tomboy girl as if she'd just turned into an actual boy.

"In a town where Moroboshi is free to stalk the streets at will?" Mendou asked. "We must accept that law enforcement has abandoned Nerima and all the neighborhoods within, and forge our own destinies and rule of law."

Ataru fell upon Mendou with a mallet, conking him one good. "What did you mean by that free to stalk the streets comment, Mendou?!"

A flash of steel signalled the end of the mallet, but the blade itself came to an abrupt stop between Ataru's palms as he caught it with a loud clap. Holding the katana in his steel grip, Mendou glared at Ataru. "I mean that you're not in a zoo where you belong, you animal!"

"I do not belong in a zoo!" Ataru protested as he tried to snatch the sword from Mendou's grip.

"You're right, you might attack the gorillas!"

"I wouldn't give your family the time of day!".Ataru then stopped. "Well, your sister yes, but-"

Mendou became furious. "BASTARD!"

Shinobu forcefully grabbed both young hot-blooded men and wrenched them apart. "Could you not fight? Mendou-san is right, though, we can't expect to rely on the authorities to do something about this creep."

"That is why I propose," Mendou said as he put his blade away, "That this evening we organize escorts for all of the young women home safe."

Almost half the girls in class who held little importance in the day to day shenanigans at Tomobiki High School gravitated over to Mendou, eyes sparkling, hands clasped in front of them, and all of them hoping and wishing for the handsome class representative to escort them. Shinobu was among this crowd, having easily muscled her way over to him. The other half of the girls all assembled around Ryuunosuke, much to the tomboy's chagrin.

"What the…? Hey, I'm not a boy!" She said with no small indignation.

"Well yeah, but you're stronger than all the boys," one girl pointed out.

"Yes, we'd feel way safer with you than with Mendou-san or…" All the girls in this particular group turned disgusted looks over towards Ataru, who was looking rather bereaved.

"Hey, girls, I'd be happy to guard your bodies!" Ataru tried to plea, only to have one in particular take up that offer–to his chagrin.

"Oh Darling! I know I can count on you!" Lum said as she hugged his arm and gave him a loving look. The iridescent-haired, blue eyed beauty's cooing was met with disgust from Ataru.

"… If anything, people need protection from _you."_ Ataru snapped back, earning Lum's smoldering ire that turned into an inferno of rage when Ran swooped in and hugged his other arm.

"Kya! Darling! Protect me from that awful monster!" Ran cried out, before giving Lum a nasty look. "And the serial killer, too."

Ataru smiled to Ran brightly. "Sure thing, Ran-CHAAAAAAAAAAAAA-!"

Both he and Ran screamed as Lum immediately delivered the equivalent to a military-grade taser's worth of volts into their bodies. As the two danced and jerked around to Lum's electrical impulses, Ryuunosuke inwardly shook her head and sighed.

A stranger who only seemed to be after women, huh?

 **|Heaven's Feel|**

The day passed on with a smattering of the routine silliness going on, which gave way to after school. The rowdy students of Tomobiki High School went about their business organizing the walk homes for the female students of the school. This of course led to Mendou having to call upon some professionals to help escort the vast majority of the school's female population home. Such a thing wasn't a big deal to the man whose family owned just over half of Japan.

Of course, his initial zeal had been aimed at being able to escort Lum places, leaving Shinobu–who had already lost one boyfriend to that obnoxious alien–feeling burned as she brooded outside the school, waiting for someone to walk her home.

Her salvation came in the form of Ryuunosuke, the tomboy walking over with book bag in hand, looking a bit annoyed over all the girls who kept asking her for walks home. It's not like she didn't want to help anyone, it's just that she knew _why_ the girls wanted her to walk them home and it did not do her feelings any good, especially after the week she'd been having.

"Shinobu," Ryuunosuke said as she approached the girl, "You ain't leave yet?"

"Mendou-san had set aside some men to escort me home but they haven't shown up." The girl explained.

"He ditched you eh?" The tomboy asked with a sympathetic expression. "Well since we're going the same way, I'll fill in for him. Sides, I wanna catch this serial killer myself." She cracked her knuckles in confidence.

Shinobu, though still a bit upset, felt safer walking with Ryuunosuke anyway. "Well ok, I think we might be able to take it down."

Ryuunosuke grinned with overconfidence. "We got this, so let's go."

The plan decided, the pair departed from school, headed towards Shinobu's house. Murmurs abounded as they made their way through the neighborhood, mostly from idle gossips with nothing better to do but speculate on the lives of other. At least no one bothered to say it directly to them.

"Ho, lookit at the cute couple! On a date are ya?"

No one except extremely annoying, short, and ugly monks who didn't know how to mind their own damned business. Though Cherry was an exception to far too many rules of politeness.

Ryuunosuke sighed. "Cherry, we're not on a date and we're not a couple. There's a killer on the loose and someone needs to catch him."

"I was accosted by him yesterday and barely escaped with my life." Shinobu added.

"Not a couple?!" Cherry said, ignoring everything said because that's just how it went it seems. "Why not? A beautiful girl like her and a handsome boy-" Whatever else he was going to say was lost as he went sailing away from being kicked incredibly hard.

"I'm a girl, damn it!"

"That won't keep him away for long," Shinobu sighed. "That old monk pops up just when you least want him around. Nice punt, though."

Ryuunosuke could only sigh in annoyance. "Well, do you remember where you saw this creep at? Not the monk, the other guy."

"Just a few blocks up ahead, actually, around the vacant lot Cherry likes to hang out," Shinobu replied.

Ryuunosuke nodded, and looked ahead. As they continued on in silence, Shinobu noticed that Ryuunosuke seemed especially tense about something, which was par for the course really–a girl raised in her situation was always a ball of tension.

"So I guess you're staying over at Ataru's another night?" She asked the tomboy.

"Yeah, I still can't stand to look my old man in the eye," Ryuunosuke replied with a sulk.

Shinobu shook her head. "How can you even stand to be over there? With him?"

"His Mom's super nice to me… and Lum and Jariten both keep him from perving on me, so it's not bad."

She glowered. "Even with Moroboshi perving on me… it's better than staying at home with that bastard!"

Shinobu sighed and rested a consoling hand on Ryuunosuke's shoulder. For a girl under already tremendous amounts of emotional strain from a father who insisted that he was a boy, the latest stunt her father pulled was just too much–messing with her feelings about her mother!

"Well if you get sick of being at Ataru's you can come stay at my house," Shinobu assured her. "It wouldn't be a problem."

Ryuunosuke managed to smile at her friend, and laughed a bit. "Thanks, Shinobu."

It was as they passed the very same alleyway that Shinobu had encountered the monster before–the dumpster still embedded in the ground where she dropped it–Ryuunosuke's smile faded and she grew alert. Shinobu immediately drew closer to her, but raised her fists close to her chest, on alert to anything strange.

Ryuunosuke looked around, all of her senses open for any sort of attacker. Although she was the number two most dangerous girl in the school, that was only by virtue of not being able to fly or shoot lightning from her body. Remove that handicap, and she was stone cold the strongest fighter in the entire school, bar none.

And still that didn't save her from Ataru suddenly glomping her from behind. "BOO!"

Retaliation came quickly, however, as the shrieking tomboy punched Ataru into the side of the dumpster. "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"

"I have a list at home, but it'll take a few hours to read," Shinobu said with a glower.

Ataru, showing his bizarre durability, hoisted himself up and smiled. "I saw a couple of girls goin' home alone so I decided that I'd escort them as per Mendou's wishes!"

"You, doing something Mendou suggested?" Ryuunosuke asked.

"Yeah it makes me sick to my stomach," Ataru zipped right over between the two girls and looped his arms around their waists to rest his hands upon their hips. "How about we stop and get parfaits on the way, my treat?"

As appealing as someone paying for treats for them was, Ryuunosuke and Shinobu both were much more taken by the idea of punching Ataru as hard as they could. Before they could, however, a chill ran through all three of them before a voice spoke out.

"You there, the young lady in the boy's uniform."

For Ryuunosuke, that chill became a jolt, and she immediately forgot about Ataru to find the voice. She turned towards the dumpster, and immediately saw what Shinobu did–a figure wrapped in shadows, crouched atop the dumpster, looking down at the three of them… but his glowing green eyes were focused specifically upon her.

" _He called me… a young lady…!"_ She thought to herself, shocked.

"Would you like to experience Heaven?" He asked.

Shinobu, now much more confident with Ryuunosuke backing her up (and the option to throw Ataru at the monster), stepped up. "That's him!"

Ataru stopped hugging on both girls, and stared at the figure. "Wait, this is the guy?"

Shinobu nodded. "Yes, this is him! The man who accosted me!"

Ryuunosuke, still shaken that the thing recognized her as female, quickly regained her composure and assumed a fighting stance. Even Ataru grew more serious upon confirmation that this was the monster in question.

"Listen pal, if there's something I don't like, it's anyone who preys on pretty girls!" He warned as he stepped up, looking bold. "If you want to prey on anything, go find a crazy annoying alien with horns and weird-colored hair and start a mess with her!"

The figure rose from its crouching position, revealing itself to be much taller than its appearance suggested–though not terribly taller than any of them. It then stepped off the dumpster and further into the light, revealing a man's shape albeit wrapped in a rain poncho.

"Good grief," the man said, "If I wanted to mess with any of the alien freaks I would've bothered them. No, I'm looking for a specific human woman…"

Ryuunosuke hesitated again. " _A human woman?"_

"Well you're about to get more than you can handle!" Shinobu declared. "Ryuunosuke, let's go!"

Ryuunosuke snapped out of her daze and nodded. "Right!"

They both shot forward towards the man in the rain poncho, both winding up for punches that would assuredly put this creep way over the horizon. When they fired them, his hands shot from under plastic material of the poncho, catching their fists and stopping their attacks cold.

Both girls shocked, stared at the calloused hands that caught their punches so effortlessly.

"You've got a good arm, trash girl," he said to Shinobu, "But you're just not what I'm looking for at all."

With that he grabbed Shinobu by the wrist, and with a mighty swing, sent the girl flying skyward like her punches did Ataru so many times.

"EEEEEK-!" Shinobu screamed as she went through the air of the alley and over the fence it ended at, crashing into some tree tops beyond it.

Ryuunosuke recoiled in horror away from the man. "Sh-Shinobu!"

Ataru was stunned as well, and no small amount of furious that a guy would toss away a girl like that, especially Shinobu! "Hey, you have a lot of nerve!"

The man looked over to Ataru, green eyes glinting through his mess of hair. "And I'm definitely not interested in young men; get out of here."

Ryuunosuke had gotten over her shock, lashing out with a kick powerful enough to shatter a brick wall. "Bastard!"

The kick sheared through the poncho, right as Ryuunosuke felt a hand on her head from a man vaulting over her. Turning fast, she attempted to strike him with an uppercut but only missed the blow, only parting the ink-black hair of a clearly foreign man wearing a pair of faded black jeans and a black jean jacket over a gray t-shirt.

"That's very good." The man said, nodding his head.

It was about then that Ataru attempted to conk him over the head with a mallet, only for the weapon to be caught in the man's hand. He looked back at him, a very disappointed expression on his face.

"I'm not one of your punchlines, buddy." He said before he kicked Ataru in the stomach. As Ataru bounced off a passing truck and back towards him, the man easily blocked or deflected Ryuunosuke's punches and kicks before leaning back to dodge a high kick aimed for his chin–that instead connected with Ataru's and sent him back again, hitting and bouncing off the side of another passing truck.

"Stay still damn it!" Ryuunosuke hollered as she punched him again.

The man avoided the swing, which connected with the returning Ataru's face, dropping him into a heap on the ground. "Come on, you have to actually earn a hit on me."

That did the trick of getting her to redouble her efforts, really pushing herself to knock this creep into next week. Even then, as she could feel the air shoved forcibly by her blows, it seemed like a hopeless effort. The man was just a little faster than her, able to outpace her blows and avoid a connect.

"You're very good for a girl with no actual training under her belt." The man congratulated her, before catching another one of her punches and deciding to hit back, delivering a quick punch to her liver that sent a wave of pain washing over her.

"Guh!" She staggered back and doubled over, her arms quickly dropping down to cover where she was struck. He had struck her so hard! "W-what the…?!"

She looked up at this guy, her body shaking from both pain and the realization that she was suddenly alone up against someone who could not only hurt her, but was much, much better than her in a fight. Though she knew she couldn't win it didn't make her afraid. It made her-

"But unbridled anger is no substitute for skill," he taunted.

Ryuunosuke was offended by the very idea. "Anger?! What do you know about me?!" She yelled, grabbing a broken piece of wood and tossing it at the guy, rushing after it with his other fist ready to fly.

The man flawlessly twisted around the wood projectile, and drove a kick like a rifle shot straight into her chest. Not hard enough to knock her back, but exactly hard enough to stop her charge cold in its tracks. He lowered his leg, and Ryuunosuke dropped to her knees, arms now crossed over her chest as she rested her forehead on the ground. That hurt, that hurt more than anything else she ever felt. How could anyone move that fast? It was like he could predict her moves…!

"I _am_ predicting your moves," he said. "You fight like just about every girl in your school. Hitting with all of your power, knocking a guy out as fast and far as possible. No skill. No finesse. Sloppy, clumsy, brutal. All you know how to do is swing your fists like a hammer."

He walked up to her, knelt down and yanked her up onto her feet. Ryuunosuke was having trouble. She was breathing, but it was like her diaphragm had been knocked out of whack by the blow, forcing her to take in air in great, desperate gulps.

"How bad do you think it would get if you met a monster who knew how to fight?" He asked her. "Who could take your hits, and hit back just as hard? Harder? Sounds like you'd go through hell."

"Wait…!" Ataru then said as he slowly rose, heroically to his feet

"Excuse me," the man said quietly to Ryuunosuke as she still laboured to breathe.

Ataru managed to get onto his feet, and immediately began to posture heroically. "… The only person who is going to go through hell is-!"

The man grabbed him by the collar and tossed him away with a single hand, as though he was throwing a tennis ball. He seemed to put about as much effort into it. Ataru went sailing in the same direction Shinobu had been tossed, and fell in thereabouts the same spot.

"As I was saying," the man dusted off his hands, returning his attention to Ryuunosuke. "Who wants to go through hell, when you can go to Heaven?"

"What… what is Heaven…?" Ryuunosuke desperately demanded. It seemed the only action she could take to stall for time, maybe think of something she could do.

The man smiled, rather ominously. "You want to see?"

On the other side of the fence, Shinobu opened her eyes. She was lying in another dumpster, the bags of garbage she had landed having burst open, leaving her covered in filth… but that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that Ataru was in the trash with her, his face lodged firmly into her behind. He was barely conscious, but that made it no less awful.

"Uuuh… Lum… you're so soft…" He moaned in his daze.

Before Shinobu could even wonder how it could get worse it did, with Lum inadvertently zapping her when she spotted Ataru from on high and chose to punish him then and there without concern to collateral damage. In point of fact, there may not even be a good way to express "collateral damage" in the Oni dictionary.

"I'm really sorry, Shinobu," Lum seemed almost actually contrite after that, but finding her romantic rival for her darling in the garbage after all of that was rather satisfying.

"I'm sure you are," Shinobu harped back at Lum with all of her indignation.

"What did I do…?" Ataru moaned as he tried to clamber out of the dumpster, before he remembered. "Oh crap, Ryuu-chan!"

That snapped Shinobu right out of her anger too. That maniac was alone with Ryuunosuke! "The serial killer!"

Lum herself grew alarmed. "What about him?"

"He wanted Ryuunosuke!" Shinobu pointed over the fence. "Back over there!"

Lum looked back in that direction. "There was no one there, I flew in from that way."

Shinobu grew pale. "Oh no, he must've taken her!"

Ataru got up, his attitude shifted entirely to focused and… dare even Shinobu say it, determined. "Lum, Shinobu, we have to find and rescue her, before it's too late!"

"Darling!" Lum gasped, shocked.

"We can't take him on alone, he tossed me like I was nothing, and he stopped one of Ryuunosuke's punches!" Shinobu pointed out.

Ataru closed his eyes and nodded. "We're going to need help, real help." He opened his eyes, giving Lum a fiery look. "I don't care whatever they're doing, Lum! Call Oyuki and Benten, they'll be more firepower than we'll ever need!"

Lum was downright struck by Ataru's decisiveness. "Y-you're right!"

"With them around, there shouldn't be any problem," he said before he added with a perverted smile while stroking his chin, "Plus, it's been so long since I've seen either of those beauties-"

"YOU ARE THE WORST HUMAN BEING!" A furious Shinobu screamed as she punted Ataru into the air for Lum to hit with an especially powerful zap. Because even at his best, Ataru was still the worst.

 **|Girl looks like a Lady|**

To the distress of all of her friends and admirers, however, the search for Ryuunosuke that night came up with nothing. She had vanished off the face of the Earth, and with having zero social media footprint (her father didn't even own a cell phone) there was no way of knowing how to find her or where to even look. This of course led to a very tense atmosphere the very next morning, as Ataru, Lum, and Shinobu met with their classmates.

"I see…" The handsome and now very grim Mendou lamented as he stood in the schoolyard, his arms folded across his chest. "My forces were unable to locate her as well, or any sign of the killer."

He turned away from Ataru, who was brooding, and Shinobu, who was about ready to cry. "It is a tragedy, but we mustn't give in to despair. Ryuunosuke's a strong woman, she must still be alive somewhere."

"Trapped, with a perverted murderer…" Shinobu said.

Ataru clenched his fists. "But she's in his clutches, there's no telling what kind of tortures he could be subjecting her to!"

His expression of frustration darkened as images of horrific torture flashed in his mind, before the images became something less horrific to him–but no less horrifying to Shinobu, Lum, and Mendou as his expression softened to one of intrigue, then one of lustful awe complete with drool running from his mouth.

"Darling, what are you imagining…?" Lum calmly asked as she grabbed her fiancé's wrist and began to consecutively zap him.

"Nnnnnnoooooothhiiiiiiiiing…!" Ataru lied as the electricity coursed through his body.

Shinobu shook her head in disgust. "Sometimes I wonder if he's come to enjoy it…"

"Death is too good for you, Moroboshi…" Mendou seethed. "Thinking such lewd thoughts when our comrade, our friend, our classmate is in mortal peril! Do you have an ounce of shame inside your wretched being?"

The question was entirely rhetorical at this point, because everyone by this point knew that he didn't.

"Who's thinking lewd thoughts about my son?!" Shouted one of the few people who could not only be as wretched as Ataru on a bad day but also overall managed to be worse than him. The father of Fujinami Ryuunosuke had emerged from his home inside the school, where he and his child ran its store.

Ataru rolled his eyes. "You know Ryuunosuke's not here for you to hear it."

Old Man Fujinami snorted. "So what has my foolish boy gotten himself into this time?"

"She's been kidnapped by a serial killer!" Ataru shouted at him.

Fujinami snorted. "So?"

"So?!" Ataru repeated. "What part of _serial killer_ don't you get?!"

"Um, I'm still having a little difficulty with this, darling!" Lum interrupted. "Is it really such a common thing here on Earth? There can't be that many of them."

"See? That sort of ignorance is exactly why guys like Jack the Ripper only targeted women," Fujinami nodded, as if spouting sage wisdom.

"So these serial killers are men who only kill women?" Lum asked, quite curious to hear the answer.

"Oh yes, some people just can't help picking on the fairer sex," Fujinami continued to bullshit.

"What about John Wayne Gacy?!" Mendou demanded.

"Who?" Both Fujinami and Lum said, the former revealing the ignorance overall while the latter immediately pulled out a smartphone (an Oni version, very advance. It could actually load full websites without lag!) and began to type in the name.

"Now I'm curious…" She murmured. "There must be more to this than you're all making it sound."

Ataru smacked Fujinami with a mallet. "It doesn't matter, man, woman, whatever! What's important is that our friend is in danger and we're just standing around talking about it! It's time for action!"

Mendou then stepped in to steal Ataru's thunder as his voice carried across the school yard, grabbing the ears of every student there. "Now is not the time for delay! We must band together!"

Ataru then pushed right back, not about to lose that thunder. "We have to save Ryuu-chan from that monster and we're not going to do it standing around here, bickering!"

Shinobu didn't know how to feel about those times where Ataru was right. She instead tried to ignore it and give the credit to Mendou. "Y-yes!"

"That's right!" Lum said in agreement as she put her phone away for the moment. "With my power to fly and technology, Shuutaro's leadership, wealth, and resources, Shinobu's strength, and darling…" She stopped at Ataru. "… And everyone cooperating, we can cover the entire town in minutes!"

"Right!" Shinobu said, drawing on a well of determination and guts. "So long as we work together, we'll be able to find and save her from that horrid man!"

"Lum, you flatter me," Mendou said, dripping with false modesty. "You say I have leadership skills when a few simple words from you has everyone this pumped up. Very well then! I shall rise to become a greater leader, still!"

"Not the highest bar to jump…" Ataru idly commented.

But instead of retaliating, Mendou shrugged. "Hmph. In a crisis like this, your words are as the buzzing of flies. For the sake of her life, we must band together and cast aside our differences! For once, Moroboshi! For once in your feeble insignificant life-"

"I thought we were casting aside our differences…"

"For one time, rise up and do something noble and courageous! If you won't do it for my sake, then do it for her! Think of the damsel in distress, and how we might rescue her!"

Everyone had their levers to pull, and Ataru's levers were big and obvious. The perverted boy rose to his feet with an unusually noble and determined expression upon his normally stupid looking face.

"I hate your guts, and you hate mine," he said to Mendou. "But for the sake of a friend, I'll put that aside for a little while. It's only the right thing to do. I'll admit you're better at organising this stuff than the rest of us, so you'd better do your best!"

"Oh, darling," Lum swooned.

"He's just trying to look cool to try and make the girls interested," Shinobu sighed, knowing Ataru and his thinking process far, far better than any healthy minded girl should. Why did she date him again? She was having trouble remembering.

"All right, then!" Mendou yelled. "You all have my phone number? Each of us shall take command of a team, and search a different quadrant of Tomobiki for any trace of our missing friend and the perpetrator! Should you see him then take care not to engage, and simply call in for immediate support! I shall direct Lum shall take the northeast quadrant, Shinobu the northwest, Moroboshi southeast, and the really cute girl in the sailor fuku that just walked in can take control over the southwest–I'm sorry miss, but what was your name?"

The indeed really cute girl in question, with short, dark brown hair and darker eyes standing by the gate to the schoolyard in the Tomobiki High school girl's uniform, looked around, just a touch nervously and pointed at herself as if wanting confirmation. When she seemed to get it, she felt suddenly in the spotlight, her face flushing nervously as she identified herself.

"Uh… it's me, Ryuunosuke? Hey guys? Whatcha… I mean… What are you all talking about? Is someone missing or something?"

The atmosphere couldn't have become more empty and still if someone had sucked all the air out of the schoolyard. They all looked at the girl in a mixture of disbelief, realisation and fascination. As in: Is this cute girl really Ryuunosuke? Couldn't be, but now that you mention it I kind of see it.

Well, not all of them had that reaction. The biggest jackass of them all–and that said something when considering a group of people which had both Ataru and Mendou in it–bounded up to the young girl, and everyone tensed up in anticipation as father peered at daughter, waiting for the inevitable explosion, the fight, the tearing of the skirt and replacing it with trousers and then, at the moment the tension was so thick you couldn't dent it with a power drill, Fujinami spoke up.

"What a coincidence! I have a son named Ryuunosuke!" he said. "The boy has run away from home for some stupid reason, and I haven't seen him for a few days. Keep an eye out for him and tell me if you see him!"

"Hi guys!" Ryuunosuke politely(!) said while grinding the heel of her foot on top of her father's head.

"That's really Ryuunosuke!" Shinobu said in shocked disbelief.

Half the boys in the schoolyard immediately dove to get a good angle on Ryuunosuke's careless upskirt - with half the girls slipping more casually by - and all of them let out a groan of disappointment when they got an eyeful of bike shorts instead of something more fun.

She stomped her foot a couple of times for good measure. "Whatcha all starin' at?"

Ataru, who was at the very forefront of the crowd who went to look up her skirt, was still quite happy to see bike shorts as well. "She's alive! And adorable!"

He was up on his feet, catching her in a tight hug. "I'm so glad to see you embracing your femininity, baby!"

Ataru went flying, uppercut by Ryuunosuke, who examined the sleeve of her uniform to make sure it wasn't damaged. "Yeah… I finally have my own sailor fuku. My very first dress!"

"Ryuunosuke!" Fujinami yelled, popping up like the weasel/cockroach hybrid he might as well be. "The shame of it! My son, a crossdresser! Don't you ever think of what you're doing to your dear old father? What would your mother say if she saw you like this?"

"I dunno," Ryuunosuke seethed. "For some reason, I can't picture that, 'cause I don't even know what she looks like. For. Some. Reason!"

There were winces all around Ryuunosuke's inner circle. The glaring reason she had left her father's company had been thrown right into his face.

"Is this your idea of revenge, then?" Fujinami asked. "Making yourself look stupid in public to spite me?"

"The only one making himself look stupid is right in front of me!"

Her Dad was holding a mirror in front of him.

Ryuunosuke kicked it up and out of his hands. Lum caught it to spare her the bad luck.

The elder Fujinami grew serious. "Well then, I will do what any caring father would and correct this behavior!"

He assumed a fighting stance and leveled an intense look at his child. His _son._ "I'm going to rip that embarrassing thing off you, my boy, and you're going to dress properly as a man!"

Ryuunosuke recoiled, before she assumed her own fighting stance. "The only way you're taking this sailor fuku off me is if you tear it from my cold dead body!"

Ataru suddenly appeared at her side, assuming his own fighting stance. "I'm ready to fight and die for your right to dress like a pretty girl, Ryu-chan!"

Mendou was immediately at her other flank, sword drawn. "Impure as your intentions are Moroboshi, you at least know when there is a proper battle to be fought!"

Ryuunosuke's expression brightened at the support… but then immediately dimmed a bit, once she realized there were quite a number of boys now gathered at her back that were looking less at the man they were supposed to be helping her fight and more at how her sailor fuku accentuated her femininity.

It was about then, that another person walked past the gates of the school. His arrival first catching Shinobu's attention, and causing her to let out a shriek that caused the entire commotion to draw to an abrupt halt.

"Shinobu-san!" Mendou asked, as the shocked girl pointed ahead, then looked in the direction indicated.

Ataru looked as well, and went rigid. When Lum and the other students turned, they were less startled and more confused at the new arrival. The only one who seemed to respond positively at all was Ryuunosuke, who looked back, and then brightened slightly.

 **|Sensei|**

"It-! It's him!" Shinobu nearly screamed. "The killer!"

Indeed it was the killer that tossed both Shinobu and Ataru aside to get his hands upon Ryuunosuke. Rather than rough looking clothes, he was clean and dressed in a slate gray three-piece suit with a green plaid tie. The man's unruly black hair and beard had cleaned up, his hair slicked back and tied into a neat and long ponytail, his full beard now trimmed and silky. His green eyes, however, still had that same dangerous glint that shook Shinobu to her core.

"Killer?" He asked. "Ladykiller, maybe."

"Exactly!" Ataru shouted. "You're-!"

"The new English Teacher." And a bright light blinded everyone close to the man. It was the sunlight, glinting off a perfectly bald and polished head of Tomobiki High School's principal, whose otherwise completely bored and emotionless face scanned the schoolyard. "It's nice that all of you have come out here to greet him. Your youthful exuberance to meet him is something to be commended upon."

Ataru, who had donned sunglasses at the right moment, then spoke up. "What are you talking about?! He's been creeping on girls for days! He attacked us! He kidnapped Ryuunosuke!"

Of all people, it was Ryuunosuke who came to the man's defense. "He wasn't creeping! He was looking for young girls to take home and put through a vigorous workout!"

Silence fell right back on the schoolyard, an awkward one this time.

Ryuunosuke flushed quickly, then tried to reiterate. "He wanted to find girls to train."

It was as though everyone else had turned to stone, right there on the spot.

"Ryuu-chan, thoughts before words," the new teacher corrected.

Ryuunosuke bowed her head and sighed. "Let's try this again. He's a martial artist looking for students."

Shinobu stopped. "Wait, that's it?"

"Yeah," Ryuunosuke said. "He came off as a creep to try to bait me into fighting him so he could measure my ability. But he was a bit too creepy."

The man laughed rather boisterously. "Yeah, I put a little too much effort into it! Luckily though, I found what I was looking for anyway so, no harm no foul right?"

"Quite!" The Principal then interjected. "This is your school's new English Teacher, Nicholas Fontaine Sherman, he is an American who has come to teach as part of the JET program."

"Yo!" Nick said with a big smile. "I hope we can all get along."

He stopped, and then his expression shifted to one of surprise. Following the man's gaze, all eyes fell upon the elder Fujinami, whose expression had darkened as he glared with all of his hatred towards him.

"You…" He growled. "YOU!"

"Me?" Nick pointed at himself.

"You?" Ryuunosuke pointed at Nick.

"Him?" Ataru asked as the natural intensity of the elder Fujinami took a new and frightening shape.

A battle aura, red and malicious, suddenly wrapped itself around Ryuunosuke's Dad, who clenched and raised his fists as he aimed his anger at the man. "FONTAINE!"

Nick blinked, then recognition dawned upon him. "Oh! Fuji, is that-?"

The ground and a few students had been thrown up into the air by the force of the elder Fujinami's acceleration straight towards Nick, a fist raised to collide with his face. A bang sounded, as Fujinami seemed to go through Nick and, much faster from that point, crashed into the school's wall.

"Huh, I guess it is," Nick said as he glanced back. "By the way, it's Fontaine _Sherman_ now, I got married, took the wife's name. She insisted."

"Dad, what the hell is wrong with you?!" Ryuunosuke screamed out, aghast.

"A great many things, apparently," Nick presumed. "Maybe it'd be better asking what's right?"

"Why are you here, you spawn of Satan's asshole?!" Fujinami growled, seemingly unfazed by his trip into the wall. Might be all the rage and adrenaline bursting through him at the moment.

"Had some business here again, namely the job I just got at this school." Nick said with a breezy tone and easy smile. "But I guess I'm just put on this Earth to ruin the shit of assholes like you."

"Dad, stop this!" Ryuunosuke yelled, knowing full well what her father was in for.

"Now now Ryuu-chan, some things just can't be avoided." Nick said, smiling a little. "Besides, he's probably going to keep at this until someone puts him down."

" _I'm_ going to put _you_ down!" Fujinami roared, a twisted aura of energy burning around him. "I should have done this years ago, when you-" He stopped suddenly, the aura guttering out before he crumpled to the dirt.

"Huh?" Ryuunosuke asked, having completely missed with it.

"What happened?" Shinobu murmured.

Nick, who no one was paying attention to, shrugged. "I punched him."

Ryuunosuke gasped, before she came over to flip her father onto his back. It was true, there was several small welts that showed a fist had struck him. "I didn't see it! Or even hear it."

"Not all punches are thrown with full power. The best punches you can throw are the ones that are guaranteed to end a fight."

"Which brings me to my next announcement," the principal spoke. "In addition to English class, Sherman-sensei is going to be leading an initiative to bring behavioral problems with certain students under control."

It was telling that the principal turned and loomed ominously over Ataru and Lum as he announced that.

"Faculty too, I hope," Ataru muttered in spite of failing the intimidation check.

"Should a faculty member get caught lurking around the girl's locker room and then zapped by their alien fiancée, they would have far worse to concern themselves with than Sherman-sensei."

"Huh," Ataru blinked. "When did you learn sarcasm?"

"Sarcasm?" the Principle replied. "What was I sarcastic about? I merely developed a ridiculous hypothetical."

He loomed a little more ominously, though depending on your point of view the effect was a trifle ruined by the gleam off his bald head or possibly amplified by it. "It's not as though we have a student here who, for example, one time made the news because they nearly caused the world's oil supplies to be stolen."

"Well then, I'm quite pleased this misunderstanding has been cleared up!" Mendou announced, seeming quite determined to return to being the centre of attention where he, in his own mind at least, rightly belonged. "And it also pleases to me to learn that the school has decided to finally take measures against those immature, troublesome elements that plague our time of learning!"

"B-But this creepy brute?" Shinobu protested. "Oh, Mendou! How can you say that after what he did to Ataru and me?" She seemed to stop for a moment to think that over. "Well, to me at least."

"Hrm…" Lum considered for a moment, tapping her chin and looking up at the sky in deep thought. "If this man is strong enough to force darling to behave, maybe he'll stop skirt-chasing…"

Ataru stuck his tongue out at her. "No man is that strong!"

There was a smile on Nick's face that suggested that he was accepting that challenge. Some might say Ataru had the worst luck in the world. The sensible people would say yes, but he really brings it on himself.

"As the new School Enforcer-" Oh he loved the ring to that… "-My first official announcement will be the creation of a new organization to deal with delinquents. As awesome as I am, I am not able to be everywhere at once. So we'll need people not just able to keep an eye on the troublemakers, but having the authority to act when necessary."

Mendou again tried to usurp the spotlight. "A splendid idea, Sherman-sen-"

Nick wasn't about to let the rich kid finish. "They will be henceforth known as the Crusaders, striving to take back order and restore dignity to the school!"

He then clapped a hand on Ryuunosuke's shoulder. "And my very first recruit and overall commander of the Crusaders will be Miss Fujinami here. She will help me determine who is best suited for the role of messengers of the school's wrath, while being a ready and capable one herself!"

Ryuunosuke recoiled a bit from the new teacher. "M-me?!"

Nick nodded. "That's right, my dear. You're the toughest fighter of the students, you're a shoo-in for the role of the number one rule enforcer."

"That's agreed," Mendou declared in an attempt to haul the spotlight in on himself. "And while we're at-"

"While I'm at it!" Nick smoothly overspoke him. "I'm going to be posting a list of potential Crusaders who will similarly enforce the rules."

Mendou was finally at his limit, quickly stepping up to Nick. "IS THERE A PROBLEM WITH LETTING ME SPEAK?!"

Nick stared impassively back at Mendou. "Actually, yes."

And the scion of the Mendou family went right into the wall next to where Fujinami lay, but made a much deeper impact in the wall. Nick lowered his hand. "The adults are speaking, and your money is no substitute for age."

Despite being notably tougher–and taking much less damage–than Fujinami, Mendou was a bit too slow getting back up.

"Mendou-kun!" Shinobu gasped, before she turned to Nick and Ryuunosuke. "This is too cruel! You can't just throw students around like this, and then demand your way!"

"Yeah!" Ataru agreed before railing more at the new teacher and the Principal who hired him.. "You're being a fascist! A dictator!"

"Hey kiddo, I'm just being a good teacher," Nick replied.

Ryuunosuke then looked up to Nick. "I don't know, maybe we're being a little heavy-handed?"

"You are!" Shinobu shouted in.

Nick nodded slowly. "Or… and hear me out on this, I am being proportionately forceful against a male student body whose numbers include a completely shameless pervert who is fine with physically forcing himself upon women at the first opportunity."

He looked pointedly at Ataru as he said this, and when he was done, everyone else in the schoolyard looked at him too.

"F-force? When did I…?" Ataru sputtered rather weakly.

"Oyuki," said Lum, who was suddenly angry now that she remembered that.

Ataru stopped and recollection came with no small amount of dread. "Oh."

"Wait, he did _what?!"_ Ryuunosuke yelped in horror.

Shinobu had just remembered that too, and her stare at Ataru became a menacing glare. "Yeah, he did. And Oyuki's guardian ended up thrashing an entire neighborhood to get at him after."

Ataru looked around, and suddenly felt very small in a valley of his peers all glowering down upon him, their glares fueled by the reminder that Moroboshi Ataru was a shameless pervert, skirt-chaser, and idiot whose actions alone were more often than not responsible for the hardships that befell everyone else. He was a young man who deserved not pity, but scorn, the combined contempt of the entire universe.

He was the reason the aliens that invaded Earth hadn't gotten bored and left them alone. He was the reason for an unprecedented ecological disaster involving a literal rain of oil on Japan. He was the reason a yeti destroyed half the neighborhood. He was responsible… _for so much._

Ataru realized that too, and grew even smaller in fear.

"Okay, I understand that I've made some mistakes but…" He tried to begin.

Nick whistled a bit. "Goodness, all this tension." He then had a great idea. "You know what? How about you all spend the next minute or so venting that, and reminding Moroboshi here exactly how you feel about him and all the things that have happened to you all because of him."

Ataru tensed up when he saw Nick's smile, that could only mean bad times ahead.

"I'll look the other way, just this once." He was right.

He hadn't even finished the sentence, when every student within ten feet fell upon Ataru like a human wave and proceeded to become a storm of kicks, punches, and headbutts–interrupted only by electrical zaps from Lum.

They managed to keep it to the minute, if only because hitting someone as hard as you could repeatedly tired you out. Even Lum was looking a little haggard from all the zaps. There was only the sound of heavy, angry breathing as everyone calmed down from their rage out.

"Feel better?" Nick asked with a smirk.

"A little," Shinobu admitted, finding the catharsis of pounding Ataru into the ground helped her tolerate the foreigner just a tad. Only just, she wasn't about to act like some whore out of GTO.

"I'm still not sure I should do this Chief Enforcer thing." Ryuunosuke admitted, though she was wanting to keep kicking Ataru.

"That uncertainty is why." Nick said, smiling for effect. "You'll get used to it, like wearing a girl's uniform."

Ryuunosuke looked down at her uniform, and then back up at Nick, before nodding. "Yes, sensei."

"Well, now that everyone is acquainted, we should all get along to class yes?" The Principal said serenely. "While play has its place in the growth of youth, it must be balanced by work to water the seeds of maturity."

The students, tired but rather satisfied by the result of their beating up the school's number one problem, began to file off inside. They left behind Shinobu and Lum–the latter of whom had gone back to reading about John Wayne Gacy–Mendou, and Ataru, who were both still unconscious along with the elder Fujinami.

"Oh… oh goodness…" Lum said in a mixture of horror and fascination. "I thought clowns were a silly harmless Earth tradition, I never imagined they were so horrible!"

"Is this really a good time to go on about clowns when we have these two already?" Shinobu asked of Ataru and the elder Fujinami.

"Don't worry about them," Nick said as he gathered up Ryuunosuke's Dad and Mendou, dragging them by the collars towards Ataru and draping them over him. "Long as I'm here, they won't be too much trouble."

He then went towards the school. "Now get to class, you two, and leave these guys out here so they can reflect on their attitudes."

Lum saw the pile of the three and frowned. "They're more likely to try to get revenge."

Nick smiled. "Good! I love a good challenge!" He turned to Ryuunosuke. "And you'll find that there's nothing more exciting than a challenge. Now then, come along, Ryuu-chan, there's still a lot to be learned."

Ryuunosuke gave one parting look at her father, and then fell into step with the new teacher up the stairs towards the school.

 **|The Wolf of Tomobiki|**

When consciousness returned to Ataru, he was as confused as he was upset. "Why did everyone just jump me like that, when he was the creep who made off with Ryuu-chan?"

"Maybe it is because you are a beast of a human being beyond even my own understanding? Mendou growled at Ataru, he was awake too, as was the elder Fujinami… who was unusually quiet as he brooded a short distance away from the two of them.

"Oh, I thought you would be still be unconscious, Mendou," Ataru moaned. "Can we forget about the whole Oyuki thing? I was a different person then, I was young, stupid, she was wearing very little, we were alone together…"

Like lightning Ataru captured Mendou's sword between his hands, but the force of that blow was stronger and faster than before. "YOU ARE IRREDEEMABLE SCUM!"

"Et tu, shithead?!" Ataru snapped back. "Or are you trying to score brownie points off me like always?! Newsflash, no one's here to see you look good!"

"No! This time I'm trying to kill you because you are the worst human being to exist!" Mendou yelled.

"No one is worse… than that man."

Both Ataru and Mendou stopped and turned to see that Ryuunosuke's Dad standing a short distance away, smoking a cigarette and brooding dramatically, the smoke billowing around him as if forming a demon of half-remembered fury. The sight caused both young men to edge back, never seeing this kind of thing from the normally moronic school store shopkeeper.

While not even looking at them, he continued to speak. "No, in fact, Fontaine is an evil in a category all its own. You're nothing but young men, chasing skirts, getting into fights, having fun as young men ought to do. You'll grow up. You'll mature. You'll settle down eventually."

"I think you speak too highly of Morobos-" Mendou was clocked over the head by a mallet. Growling, he slowly turned towards Ataru, grip tightening on his sword.

Before the two could resume fighting, Fujinami took a drag from his cigarette, and blew out more smoke. "Fontaine is the man who never grew up. Hurting people is a game to him, ruining lives is fun, destroying everything he touches is how he gets his jollies."

Ataru and Mendou looked at each other, and then back at the elder Fujinami, this man was suddenly far too lucid for this to be normal.

Lowering the cigarette, he turned and looked at the boys. "You think I'm bad because of how I treat my son? I am Buddha reincarnated compared to him."

Okay, not entirely lucid.

The senior Fujinami took a final drag of his cigarette, then exhaled the smoke through his nose. "You boys need to stop your bickering and man up, you hear me? Man. Up." He clenched the cigarette in his fist. "Grit your teeth and prepare to take hits that'll kill a normal man… because there's a wolf stalking these streets, and he'll devour everything he can get his fangs in."

As smoke rose from between his fingers, he looked up at the school, prompting a somewhat worried Ataru and an attempting to look cool Mendou doing the same.

"… And he's started exactly the same way he did last time I crossed paths with him. Close to my heart."

* * *

A/N: Time for elite sidestory games. Enjoy your once a week dose of Urusei Yatsura fic. And in case none of this makes sense, go read my other story, for Ranma 1/2, Senpai.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Urusei Yatsura is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and AnimEigo. Support the official release, or don't… because _holy shit._

 **Sensei  
** **A Urusei Yatsura Story  
** **Chapter 2/?**

 **|My Own Worst Enemy|**

Hunched over, Nick walked down the street away from the site of his battle with Ryuunosuke, with the still struggling to breathe girl carried upon his back. She wasn't wheezing as loud as she was before, but she was still having difficulty, one that he noticed with a bit of an amused chuckle.

"Calm down and stop trying to shovel air down your throat. Your breathing's fine, you just need to use more of your lungs to breathe now." It made sense to someone who lived and breathed the art.

To a brawler like Ryuunosuke, it sounded like he had told her to punch out the sun. "Whu-whu-whaaaat?"

"Quit huffing and puffing, take a deep breath and hold it for a few seconds." Nick instructed her, looking amused. "Take it all the way into your core and feel the thrum of energy within it. Let the tension bleed away."

It couldn't hurt to try it his way. "Okay..." She breathed in deeply, feeling her lungs expand fully, even the air sacs that refused to take on air reinflated. Her heartbeat slowed a little and the panicked tension of trying to breathe again subsided.

"Better isn't it?"

Ryuunosuke nodded.

"Congratulations, you've learned your very first lesson under my school. Breathe right like this and you'll start to put some real power behind your hits."

"Will I be able to kill vampires, too?" Ryuunosuke read manga before, she wasn't a sheltered girl, just one raised by a moron.

"Sorry, that one doesn't scan." Nick wasn't the comic book type, he was the comic book movie type.

"I thought it was something special…" Ryuunosuke murmured.

"It's basic martial arts," Nick replied. "If you don't breathe naturally when you fight, then you're going to tire yourself out fast. You've watched plenty of Kung Fu movies I wager, they're not breathing deep because it's cool."

Ryuunosuke nodded, comprehending that, before she asked. "So… were you just looking for someone to train with that creep act?"

"Yeah, I was waiting for the right girl to come along. Someone that with enough talent that a little polish and would put someone who's done it for years to shame." He grinned. "I can already think of someone who'll be _really_ salty when I pull out your potential."

Potential? Her? "You think I could be really good? I'm a woman you know…"

"Pfft, there are _lots_ of good female martial artists. Hell, there's a whole village of 'em in China and they'd be probably the most dangerous of 'em all… if it weren't for a Russian chick I know and my niece."

"Your niece?"

"A long term pet project of mine, you'll meet her soon enough. But don't worry about her… worry right now about you and what I plan to do."

"Nothing creepy, I hope…"

Nick glanced back at her and grinned. "Oh no, never with a student. Things like that get in the way of a proper education."

Well that was a relief to Ryuunosuke, though she remained wary just in case. "So why me? Why not Shinobu?"

"What, the trash girl?" Nick laughed. "Oh, she's good at turning that impotent anger into raw physical strength… but she's got no potential as a martial artist. If I were to teach her, she'd lose that fire of hers real quick."

He shook his head. "No, she's not like you. You have a vast reservoir of issues that you need addressed, and I'm gonna convert all of them into real ultimate power."

"I ain't got issues," she muttered.

"Honey, you've got plenty. You spent your whole life raised as a boy by a moron."

Ryuunosuke did a double-take. "Wait, how do you know that?"

Nick didn't answer that, but continued on the list. "Leading to a natural slew of psychological issues: You wanna dress like a chick, but you wanna earn it first. You wanna act like a chick, but you don't even know how. You hate daddy, but you still bend to his wishes."

Ryuunosuke began to squirm, and finally slid off Nick's back and onto her feet. She regretted this, because the jolt of landing on her feet went right back to her freshly punched liver, and she doubled over, falling to her knees. "Oh crap!"

Nick turned and looked back at her. "There was a reason I was carrying you. You're still very tender."

She looked up at him. "H-how do you know that about me?"

At least she didn't take her eyes off the prize. "Are you kidding me? In a town with so many eclectic characters, how could someone with a vested interest _not_ know who you are? Ryuunosuke Fujinami. The girl raised as a boy by a moron who believes his self-denial can bend reality to fix his shortcomings."

Ryuunosuke glowered. "My old man…"

"Yep, but he's only the second biggest moron out of the two of you."

The needle scratched, and suddenly Ryuunosuke was more angry than she was in pain. "What do you mean _second_ biggest?!"

"Because you're still convinced that you need to beat him in order to gain his permission to be a woman."

"I do not-!"

"When you could've left years ago and done it yourself."

Ryuunosuke kind of stopped, her mouth hanging open.

"When you turned fifteen and were thus legally eligible for work, you could emancipate from your Father and live on your own," he revealed.

"I… I could've… what?!" Ryuunosuke screamed at him, and regretted it when her liver protested.

"Left anytime in the last two years and some change," Nick said. "Thing is, even if you did know about that, you wouldn't do it on your own… because of all the traits you took from your old man, you got one of the worst–self-denial."

"How am I in self-denial?!"

"You've hinged your entire identity on getting your idiot father to acknowledge that you're a woman, and nothing else."

Ryuunosuke gaped at Nick again, as the reasoning cut deep.

"If there's one thing you can credit a person for, it's sticking to their guns and resisting things that deviate from their worldview. But when they stick to their guns when their worldview is shown to be demonstrably wrong with all the evidence in front of them, they stop being respectable and start being a moron." Nick pointed at Ryuunosuke. "And your belief that if you beat it into him enough that you'll convince him you're a woman is as moronic as his belief that if he berates you enough, you'll magically turn into a man. What you can do, what you need to do, is walk away from that idiot and start being a woman because you say you are, not because he thinks you are."

Ryuunosuke looked down at herself, shaken by Nick's assessment. Was she really the idiot here? In her own stubbornness… did she let her old man play her like a chump?

She punched the ground. "… No way… I'm…"

"An idiot who hates herself," Nick said. "On the bright side, that self-hatred and stubbornness is what is going to burn up and turn you into a fierce fighter. You have a lot of issues to work through, and when you've worked through 'em you're not only going to be one of the best fighters in the world… but you're going to be one of the most incredible women to walk the Earth."

He looked to his left and found a nice suburban two-story home that he immediately turned into and walked up the path to the front door. Ryuunosuke looked around, was this his house?

"What's this place?" She asked as she got up and hobbled after him.

"My wife's house," Nick replied as he unlocked the door and stepped in. "And your new home while I train you up."

"Your wife…?" She repeated as she followed him in.

Stepping down the hallway, they stopped in the doorway to the sitting room, where a lovely brown-haired woman in an beautiful white and pink kimono sat at a low table watching television. Turning towards them, the woman's face lit up in a beautiful smile.

"Ah, welcome home darling!" She greeted as she rose to her feet. She then noticed Ryuunosuke. "Who is this young lady?"

Ryuunosuke blushed, actually rather liking being identified as a woman by someone so feminine.

Nick smiled. "My new student, Fujinami Ryuunosuke-chan."

He then looked to Ryuunosuke and gestured to his wife. "This Ryuu-chan, is my wife, Nodoka."

Nodoka bowed to her. "Her uniform, she goes to Tomobiki, right?"

Nick hummed an affirmative. "Sure does, but her father made her wear the boy's uniform. We can give her your old one, if you're not averse to parting with it."

It was Nodoka's turn to blush. "Ah, but dear… that doesn't seem appropriate…"

Ryuunosuke missed that part. "Wait, you have a sailor fuku from Tomobiki?!"

"She still fits in it, too," Nick said wistfully. "Well… barely."

He was going to miss it.

"Please, please let me wear it!" Ryuunosuke pleaded with Nodoka. "I'll do anything! It's been my dream to wear a Sailor Fuku! You don't understand!"

Surprised genuinely at the desperation in the young woman, Nodoka took a step back, before she looked to her husband with a bit of uncertainty.

"Please, let her have it. She's my new student and I want her to have some happiness with what I'm about to put her through."

At that Nodoka relented. "Well… if you insist…"

She then flushed a bit deeper and she edged off towards the bedroom to retrieve the uniform. "I will have to wash it… there are stains…"

Ryuunosuke didn't care. "I'll wash it myself!"

Nick placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. "Nah, hon… you're too pure for that. For right now, get some food in you and get some rest. Tomorrow, we begin your education."

"Well yeah, if I'm going to school," Ryuunosuke said back.

Nick smirked. A lot of people were going to school starting tomorrow.

 **|For Whom the Bell Tolls|**

In class 2-4, Ataru managed the stagger his way in and collapse into his chair, under the glares of his classmates. Hadn't they all gotten their fill out in the courtyard this morning? Whatever, he still had time before the bell so he had to say something.

"That Sherman guy's gotta go," he declared with as much begrudging as he could muster. "He's up to no good."

"I don't know, Darling," Lum said from her seat, "Disciplining you seems to be plenty of good."

"It's not good for me! I got beaten up by the whole student body!" He protested.

An unspoken "but you deserve it" hung in the air that wasn't said.

He then looked over at Shinobu. "Besides, you should've seen what he did to Shinobu yesterday! He literally threw her in a dumpster!"

Shinobu grew defensive. "Hey! Don't put the spotlight on me!"

"He ain't like other jerks who know where to keep his hands, he's not above hurtin' women at all!" Ataru pleaded. "That jerk doesn't care who he hurts, in fact he likes hurting people!"

With the boys, Ataru was slow to gain any momentum, but he gained an unlikely ally–the most unlikeliest of all as another female classmate slapped her hand down on his desk.

"That's right! As much as I hate to even begin to support Moroboshi on anything, this new guy is rotten!" She said, nay, declared with full conviction.

"Huh?" Ataru said in surprise.

"Ehh?!" Shinobu and Lum and quite a few other students were stunned to see that _a girl_ was backing Ataru up. She would not be the only one.

"He's creepy and he's got a weird look to him, worse than Moroboshi," another girl said.

"And even worse… look what he did to Ryuunosuke-kun!" A third girl called out, drawing the most vehement agreement from the other girls.

Ataru's surprise at the back-up melted away as he quickly realized the support had nothing to do with Sherman being up to no good. Still, for once in his stupid existence, he wasn't going to look a gifthorse in the mouth. "That's right, he's obviously done something awful to her!"

"Yes!" Another girl said. "Ryuunosuke doesn't even look that good dressed as a girl!"

"I agree!" Ataru said, hoping to get even more pull towards the cause, even though he in fact _adored_ Ryuunosuke's newfound femininity.

Lum immediately leveled a sardonic look at Ataru, seeing clean through him. "Gee, Darling, I could've sworn you were the first to fall head to her heels when you saw her in her new uniform."

Shinobu wasn't bullshitted either. "Ataru, you're the first and the last person who should be trying to lead this rebellion."

"I agree! That is why I shall take the reins!" Mendou declared as he materialized seemingly out of nowhere.

"Ah, Mendou-san!" Shinobu yelped when she saw his arrival.

"I thought that Sherman-sensei would be a valuable resource to this school, but after knowing him for a few moments, I can see for sure that he is a sinister and conniving man with ill designs not only for Ryuunosuke, but for all of us."

Lum rolled her eyes. "It isn't because he cast you aside like he seems to do everyone else in his way?"

Mendou's brows furrowed. "Lum, whom I admire and respect, try to understand that a man of my status and wealth commands respect that should be heeded. The scion of the Mendou family is not one to be tossed aside like a piece of refuse!"

Ataru had an amused look, yeah, Mendou was mad about that. "Well why don't we put our differences aside and take him down together, Mendou? It's not like we're going to gain anything if we fight each other the whole way."

Mendou folded his arms and chuckled. "You're in luck, Moroboshi. Right now I despise this monstrous man more than I hate you, and to see the status quo restored before he upsets it further I'll make a deal with the devil himself."

He extends his hand to Ataru, who after a moment's hesitation, takes it and shakes it firmly.

Lum looked aside to Shinobu. "So I guess Darling is the devil."

"Satan incarnate," Shinobu muttered back.

A third hand clasped over the two shaken, and both young men looked up to see Ryuunosuke's Dad standing with them, tears running down his cheeks. "I've never been more proud," he said, "To see bitter enemies all coming together for the sake of my son."

He then released them, fire burning in his eyes. "I won't let Fontaine win… not again… not ever! He will not turn my son into a creepy transvestite!"

Atatu, Mendou, and everyone else in the classroom didn't say it, even though they really wanted to.

"Oh, hey Fuji," Nick then called from the doorway. "Unless you have an announcement to make, get out. I got to start class in like two minutes."

Ryuunosuke was beside Nick, and frowning at the sight of her father. Fujinami turned to face the two, as did everyone else in the class.

"Bastard!" Fujinami yelled as he pointed at Nick. "I've seen through your technique! You won't get the better of me again!"

"That's sweet, Fuji-chan," Nick said calmly.

It was Ataru's turn to say something heroic. "Ryuunosuke, that skirt really flatters your figure!"

Mendou nudged Ataru with his elbow.

"I mean… that guy is using you! Giving you everything you want, so he can manipulate you!"

Finally, it was Mendou who spoke, most heroically of all of course. "Nicholas Fontaine Sherman-sensei! Whatever designs you have for the fair-"

"Manly," Fujinami corrected.

"-Ryuunosuke, I will see to it that she-"

"He," Fujinami corrected.

"-And the school are freed from your clutches. I will not allow you to influence her-"

"Him," Fujinami corrected.

"-Any longer!"

Ryuunosuke looked up at Nick and gestured to her father, conveying the sort of shit she has to put up with. Nick was, if anything, sympathetic. However, he had a minute and thirty seconds before bell and he was not putting up with this shit.

"All right kids, since I want to teach a class but you want some hijinks I'll compromise," he said. "If any of you students plus Fuji-chan here can lay a single physical blow on me by the last bell of the school day today… I will leave forever."

The elder Fujinami was already sailing straight for Nick with a majestic flying kick, and he kept flying… out into the hallway and out the window beyond it to crash to the ground two stories below.

"It's gotta be a good clean hit," Nick went on like nothing happened as he stepped back into the doorway. "You can do whatever you feel you must to hit me, but it's gotta be a physical blow."

He sidestepped Ataru's mallet. "I'll make it even easier for you, and count me blocking an attack as one landing. You have to physically hit me in order to get rid of me." He flicked Ataru's forehead, sending him stumbling back.

He looked among the students. "I'm so confident that none of you idiots will land that hit, that I'll even pay the one who hits me 10,000 yen."

At that moment, the bell rang, and Nick clapped his hands together. "Well, everyone to your seats. Class is beginning now!"

 **|Classroom Assassination|**

Ryuunosuke took her seat, ignoring the tension in the air as everyone in the class was glaring at Nick like a pack of hyenas. It was obvious that even the people who didn't mind the mysterious new teacher were wanting the money offered. Even Shinobu was eying the man with such feral eyes, like he was a giant cake waiting to be devoured. Funny how playing to their greed or dangling what they want in front of their eyes they forget everything that should ward them off.

Well, she was hardly one to cast stones in this regard, but it was simply another way of mocking them to the man who was now her Sensei. There was something about this man, some kind of trick he would use to stay ahead of everyone else like he did against her.

The only person who didn't appear drawn magnetically to their sensei's completely open back was of course Mendou. What was 10,000 yen to a person like him? The custom parachutes he used and tossed every morning before school were worth more than the paltry reward offered by the man. That didn't mean he wasn't planning on attacking him, no, because while the sin of greed was taken care of, his injured pride was howling for justice.

And Mendou had the money to satisfy it.

"The Treaty of Amity and Commerce, or the Harris Treaty, signed by the United States and Japan opened up four port cities in Japan to American Citizens," Nick said in English to his students as he wrote it down on the board.

Ataru, who certainly didn't pay attention to English before and was entirely tuned out now thanks to his focus on the money and evicting their new teacher, grumbled. " _I'll take Onsen-Mark over this bastard any day…"_

"It opened up four of the country's cities to trade with the United States, and granted extraterritoriality to any American Citizens who desired to live in those cities."

Shinobu, who studiously paid attention in English class and thus had a good grasp of it, found the lesson in question unusual. " _Is he talking about this on purpose?"_

After all, the treaty in particular was a rather humiliating moment in Japanese History, where its sovereignty was curtailed by a foreign power and hinted darkly at future colonization by the Americans. If he was making it on purpose, then it wasn't funny.

He turned back towards his class, and scanned the room. "Who can write on the board and recite, in English, the meaning of extraterritoriality in the diplomatic sense?"

Immediately a pair of yellow horns sticking from iridescent-colored hair stood out, and he pointed. "Oh, perfect! Invader-san, come on over."

Lum rose from her chair, literally levitating from it and flew over to the front of the classroom. Human in appearance in every other way, and quite attractive, there was no denying how alien she was in a school where most were bafflingly unusual.

"Oh, I can do that for sure!" Lum said as she produced a stick of chalk and turned to the board.

Seeing that Lum pulled out her own chalk rather than go waiting at the board, the other students went still, and watched her intently.

" _Is she going to cheat?"_ Ryuunosuke wondered.

" _Lum-san… you're making a bold first move…"_ Mendou thought, quite impressed that the object of his ador would be so brazen.

Nick nodded to Lum. "By all means, Invader-san, begin."

Lum pressed the chalk against the board, and began to write her way towards him as she spoke in clear but stilted English. "Extraterritoriality, noun, the state of being exempted from local laws by way of diplomatic negotiation."

"Very good, Invader-san," Nick said as Lum reached his side and put the period on the end of the definition. She stood less than a meter away from him, well within striking distance.

Lum turned to Nick and flashed him a smile, before she violently threw down the chalk piece, which struck the ground and became a blinding white cloud that expanded to every corner of the classroom. At ground zero, Lum struck with speed that cleared the clouds around her fist, aiming for the figure in the smoke that was most assuredly the teacher. " _At this range, that money is as good as-"_

Her electrically charged punch blew back the dust around her, revealing that Sherman-sensei had completely disappeared from where he stood. "What?!"

Nick poked the back of her neck with two fingers, making her yelp and jump away from him. The dust was quickly settling, and while he was successfully dusting himself off, everyone else was caked in bright white powder and gaping in surprise at the failed attack.

"Let's hear a round of applause for Invader-san. Thank you for trying, and high marks for going with a surprise attack straight off the bat," Nick said as he clapped for Lum.

" _Lum-san missed at that close a range?!"_ Mendou wondered in bewilderment.

Lum brought a hand to the back of her neck. It really was just a tap, it didn't even hurt. Her face burning a bit in frustration and embarrassment, Lum went back to her chair wondering how he could have evaded her from that close.

"Way to blow it," Ataru muttered.

"There was no way I could!" Lum whispered back harshly. "He was so close I could smell him!"

Mendou took notes, not only of what was on the board, but of what he had just learned. This would prove useful.

Lum was right, Ryuunosuke observed. At the very least, she should've at least grazed him with the electricity she could generate, but even that didn't seem to connect.

Nick faced the class, amused. "With that miss in consideration, I'm going to raise it another one thousand yen for every failed attempt. I'm sure that by the end of the day the prize will easily be… two… two hundred fifty thousand yen?"

He looked at the clock and then back to his class. "Clock's ticking."

He turned back to the board and continued the lesson, speaking in English. "It was the signing of the Harris Treaty and the rest of the Five Power Treaties that created fear and resentment within Japanese society of a hostile takeover of the nation, prompting a movement to regain sovereignty and expel the barbarians from their country…"

 **|The Nature of the Beast|**

By lunch time it was a hundred and fifteen thousand yen, with the majority of the failed efforts ranging from female students attempting to surprise Nick while approaching him with advice for their English, to a group of young men with yen in their eyes and a thought fool-proof plan of catching him in a narrow stairwell from all directions. Both ended with embarrassing results, though the girls at least got an edge on their English homework.

A few one-off students had tried their own attacks before, between, and after, but they too ended in the same way–hitting air where there was supposed to be a teacher.

"It's hopeless," Shinobu said to their circle of association. "He moves too fast."

"Yeah, but how? I mean you saw him, right? Lum had him. She _had him."_

He did, Ryuunosuke agreed as she nursed a bottle of juice. She was sitting with them because Nick had decided he'd go home for some "Afternoon Delight" for lunch, or whatever that was. She was sitting closest to Shinobu, keeping her distance from the other boys.

Ataru looked over at Lum, who didn't seem particularly broken up over losing to Nick. As a matter of fact, she was deeply engrossed with a wikipedia article on the Zodiac Killer.

"The first and best shot, too," Shirai Kousuke, the relatively plain-looking best friend of Ataru lamented. "The guys who jumped him in the stairwell all ended up punching each other, they're still in the clinic."

An idea flickered in Ataru's head, but it didn't spark. Something about what that guy said…

"What about you, Ryuunosuke?" Kosuke put forward. "You've been around him the longest, you can tell us about him?"

Ryuunosuke shied away from being put on the spot. "I can't really tell you anything. I've only known him for a day, what do you want me to tell me all of his secrets?"

"It wouldn't hurt," Ataru mumbled.

"Sorry, the only thing he's taught me is how to breathe properly," Ryuunosuke revealed.

"He taught you Hamon?!" A number of other students asked, in shock.

Ryuunosuke rolled her eyes. "No, this isn't manga."

Those same students sagged in disappointment.

"Maybe he's another alien?" Proposed one of Shinobu's friends. "A human being can't move _that_ fast."

"Darling can, but only if his opponent is a woman he wants to chat up," Lum said without looking up from her mobile phone. "Hey, did you know that a recent American presidential candidate is the most likely suspect in the Zodiac killings?"

Mendou agreed. "She's right, we've seen Moroboshi defy the human limit numerous times when a beautiful woman is on the line."

"Boy have we ever," Shinobu muttered.

"However, Moroboshi is a rare outlier. Even the fittest and most skilled of martial artists have very human limits." He rose to his feet, looking quite confident. "As a matter of fact… our sensei should be meeting his right now."

Ryuunosuke frowned. "What do you mean, Mendou?"

"Right now, I have dispatched the finest company of my family's private security force to soften him up in anticipation for my striking him down."

Ataru, Lum, Ryuunosuke, and Shinobu all recoiled in shock.

"You called the military on him?!" Ryuunosuke shouted.

Mendou nodded. "Right this moment, as Sherman-sensei returns from his lunch off campus, he will be set upon by one hundred of the best soldiers from foreign militaries all over the world."

Ataru was rather pleased by this. "Really? Your best? Not those losers with the sunglasses?"

"What did you-?!" Mendou then stopped himself. "I mean of course, a personal detail was too small a unit to pit against the likes of a man who could evade Lum under those conditions."

At that moment, the sound of gunfire, muffled by the windows of the school, began to crack and echo. All the students looked towards it, with varying degrees of concern.

Mendou chuckled. "Right on schedule."

"They're not going to kill him, are they?!" Shinobu asked in genuine concern.

"Fear not, the soldiers were all equipped with rubber bullets and stun grenades, to do the most damage in the shortest time. Once they have him neutralized, they will further incapacitate him to allow me to move in and secure the final blow."

The gunfire and explosions began to diminish gradually… before a very large blast shook the building.

Lum looked over at Mendou. "Those are some powerful stun weapons."

"Yes, they are generally meant for extremely large animals," Mendou said before there was a flash, and some flames from the direction the fighting was coming from. They sure were been hot, because he was starting to sweat.

Ataru looked towards the flames, and then looked up as a single Mil Mi-24VP Hind-D flew past the window, its body swinging around so it could engage the target with all of its weapons.

"Huh, Hind-D, new acquisition?" Ataru asked Mendou.

"F-Fresh off the assembly line, in fact," Mendou replied, trying very hard to look cool before the sound of rockets leaving their tubes in a loud volley filled the air… immediately followed by a series of floor shaking explosions before there was a final, desk rattling kaboom. Then there was silence.

The sound of the Hind-D's rotors was conspicuously absent.

Ryuunosuke rose from her desk and looked at Mendou. "That sounded like it escalated."

Mendou got up next, and with as much decorum as he could. "I believe that silence has determined a mission well-accomplished."

He quite nervously hurried for the door.

 **|Money Can't Buy You Satisfaction|**

In hindsight, Ataru wondered what Mendou actually hoped to find when they came out to the gymnasium. Whatever it was, he was pretty sure it wasn't a crashed Russian attack helicopter and about a dozen or so soldiers laying around it in various states of consciousness. He was definitely sure it wasn't Nick dusting off his suit again as he had done after Lum's chalk attack.

"Hey there, Mendou-kun! Here for your victory lap?" Nick said as he raised his hand above his head and waved to him.

Ataru glanced at Mendou and found the pompous ass looking utterly dumbfounded at the state of his forces. "Wha… huh…?"

"Yeah, about these guys… you may have a lot of money but you really skimped on the quality. After like the third guy I knocked out, they all just kinda started running around like chickens with their heads chopped off."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Honestly? I didn't even beat all of them up, they ran away after I took out the first squad and called in the Hind."

Ryuunosuke looked around at the beaten, bloodied but still alive men, but was more drawn to the trashed helicopter, its canopy shattered and its pilots unconscious and foaming at the mouth.

He noticed her staring and smiled. "Been a little bit since I had to take down a Hind-D on foot. Even harder since I didn't have a Stinger Missile.

"How did you even do it?" She asked.

"… The trick is timing to get an attack in between the rotors; luckily I know the RPM of a Mi-24VP's main rotor like the back of my hand. Had I not, I wouldn't have tried that mess,"

"I understand that… but _what did you do to it?"_ She asked, as if her previous question went unanswered.

Nick raised his right elbow up and patted it. "The ol' elbow, my girl."

Ryuunosuke stared at him, as disbelieving as the rest of her classmates.

"Come on, don't act all surprised at me. You go to school with a space alien and a billionaire." Nick deflected again before he looked over and saw Mendou with Ataru, Lum, and Shinobu. "Speaking of… Mendou-kun! This is the part where we fight for real, isn't it?"

Mendou snapped out of his daze and turned to face him. "Huh? What?!" He then remembered that he had to look cool, and promptly produced his trusted katana. "It seems I was indeed foolish to rely on the small people to face a challenge like you. I will gladly face you myself now!"

"Yo, uh, Mendou buddy." Ataru said, having looked over the calm looking man who was casually standing next to a totally wrecked helicopter without so much a tuff of dirt on him. "I think you might wanna chill."

Shinobu, Lum and Ryuunosuke all reacted in shock that Ataru would say something reasonable without chatting up a girl on the line.

"Still your tongue Moroboshi." Mendou wasn't having it though. "He desires this battle, and I will give it to him… with all of my courage."

Well said, ironic too given that his knees were shaking.

Nick saw this, before he asked. "Before we get started. I have a question for ya: Do you think that a lifetime of money and influence can make up for a man's inability to fight? When he has neither, can he still win?"

Mendou huffed. "What kind of question is that, I-"

Before he could blather needlessly about his bloodline and status and the expectations he had to live up to, Nick let out a slow, dark laugh. "All right. Well, here's a better question…"

His eyes lit up with the fire of anticipation and violence, his smile growing across his face as he smartly sized up the scion of the Mendou family. "Do you want to have a bad time? 'Cause if you take one more step forward, you are _**really**_ not going to like what happens next."

"Mendou-san…" Shinobu said as she waited his response.

Ryuunosuke looked from Nick to Mendou, and saw that the latter was now sweating profusely as he stood face to face with his teacher.

Again Ataru was having his reservations. Despite Nick's threat, he seemed eager, no, _excited_ at the prospect of Mendou having at it with him. "Mendou, look what he did to all these guys, I don't think you should be even pointing that sword at him!"

Shinobu then thought very quickly and intervened. "Mendou-san, wait! Your pride isn't worth this!"

Stopping, it occurred to her to gesture to Lum for some backup. Realizing that Shinobu was beckoning her, Lum agreed and spoke up as well. "Yeah, Mendou, if you fight him I'll lose all respect for you."

And just like that, the sword was gone and Mendou was washing his hands of the confrontation. "I'll concede that your prowess in battle is a tier or two above my own."

"Oh you flatter me," Nick said dryly.

"However, this does not change my opinion of you, and at the first opportunity I will have you banished from this school, from this country if need be," Mendou declared.

Nick snorted in amusement. "If you want me to go away, just straighten up and fly right. No disrespecting others, no harassing girls, and definitely no pulling swords out on people who annoy you or are engaged to that one girl you like, or both."

"Yeah," Ataru said smugly. "Know your place, Mendou!"

Nick was about to say something to that when Ryuunosuke cut him off with a withering laugh.

"Oh that's rich coming from the guy who only really opposes him because he isn't going to let you do what you want." She said, glaring at Ataru.

"I am not, I just have concerns for the safety of the girls here at school!" Ataru argued.

"If he said you had free reign to terrorize all the girls, you'd be praising him as your new God," Ryuunosuke shot back.

Ataru blanched and before he could lie epically to deny it, Lum and Shinobu both made agreeing noise.

"Darling is that kind of horrible person." Lum had to admit.

"Definitely." Shinobu agreed.

"Hey, don't act like a passive actor in all of this, Miyake-chan. After all, you hang out with these degenerates," Nick suggested.

Shinobu's face flared red in embarrassment. "Sherman-sensei!"

"You even used to date Ataru, isn't that right?" Nick asked, causing Ryuunosuke to whirl upon Shinobu in surprise. She didn't know _that._

Ryuunosuke looked befuddled for a second, looking from Ataru to Shinobu and back. "Wow, you have a terrible taste in men."

"I'll say, she's sucking up to Mendou these days." Ataru grumbled.

"Just awful," Nick said. "She dated the original and is now trying to jump on the rich model."

Ryuunosuke snorted. "A credit to my gender she is."

"What gender would that be, my son?" Fujinami said, as he strolled out of the school bedecked in a towering aura. The air seemed to shimmer around him, and his normally skinny and rickety body bore rippling muscles squeezed tightly under his loose pants and white shirt.

"Oh hey Fuji-chan, I was wondering when you'd show up." Nick said cheerfully. "I see you've unsealed your true power."

"Old man," Ryuunosuke said, shaking her head. "What part of 'I'm a girl' don't you get?"

"The part where you're my son idiot boy!" Fujinami roared back.

Ataru looked over to Mendou. "Wait, true power?"

Mendou shrugged his shoulders, but if he had to guess, it was the rather buff version of the elder Fujinami standing before them, bickering with his daughter.

"I have breasts and a vagina! I don't have a penis or testicles!" Ryuunosuke hollered back, her voice one hundred percent feminine. "I know you're an idiot but I'm pretty sure you should know the difference between men and women!"

"Oh, he does… but remember… he's not dumb because he's ignorant, he's dumb because he's in denial." Nick pointed out.

Ataru, Lum, Shinobu, and Mendou all agreed with Nick, though they were uncertain if he was aware how much he knew. They would learn soon enough.

"Spew nonsense all you want, Fontaine-" Fujinami bellowed.

"Sherman." Nick corrected blithely.

"-Shithead." Fujinami snarled.

"I'll allow it." Nick decided after a second.

"I am not interested in your ill-gotten money and I do not want your pity in whatever lies you want to posture behind as honor." Fujinami said, aura beginning to crack the ground. "I am going to do more than hit you, I am going to bury you in the ground!"

"Ooh, daunting," Nick said as he slipped his hands from his pockets. "But I'm going to tell you outright, Fuji-chan, that this is going to be ripping off an old band-aid for you."

"And I'm going to tell your sin to the entire world, so my son can appreciate why I hate you so… and adopt that hatred himself!"

He bowed his head. "Ryuunosuke… in truth… I know full well about your mother, Masako. I remember her face, her kindness, her warmth… I remember the smile on her face, as she offered you to hold in my arms the day you were born. I remember every beautiful thing about her, and when I see your face I can only feel the ache in my heart when I see how much you resemble her."

Ryuunosuke gave pause. "W-what…?"

Ataru and Mendou were shocked, both of the same thought: Ryuunosuke's Mom must've been the most beautiful girl in all of Tokyo, Maybe even Japan!

"But I also remember the day she left…" Fujinami's battle aura grew as he clenched his fist. Then, with dramatic flourish he pointed directly at Nick, his eyes wide with fire and fury.

"THE DAY THAT SHE WAS STOLEN FROM ME BY THAT MAN! NICHOLAS FONTAINE!"

On the other end of the accusing finger, Nick's smile grew malevolent when the truth was laid bare.

 **|Netorare|**

"Wh-what?!" Ryuunosuke screamed in horror.

Shinobu looked back and forth between Nick and the elder Fujinami, her hands covering her mouth as the revelation sank in.

"I see now!" Mendou exclaimed. "The familiarity! The remark that Fujinami made when he said that Sherman was targeting that close to his heart!"

Ryuunosuke looked over towards Nick. "Is… is this true? Is what this idiot is saying true?!"

"Did I steal his wife?" Nick rephrased, as his expression did not change. "Yeah, I cuckolded him something fierce."

Ryuunosuke took a step back, suddenly feeling her skin crawl. "Y-you…"

"I don't need to lie, so why waste time?" Nick asked.

Fujinami lowered his hand. "So you're not even going to deny it. Do you see, Moroboshi? This is what I meant by his evil."

He looked at his hand, the fingers relaxed before he clenched it into a fist. "I remember that horrible day perfectly clear, holding it in my mind with 4K clarity. You were only months old at the time, just shy of a year, and our beachside teahouse was thriving thanks to your mother's radiance."

The image of a bustling tea house by the sea, of summer beachgoers coming and going to enjoy the food and drink while exchanging pleasantries with the family Fujinami entered the minds of the sideline witnesses.

"It was just the three of us, with your mother and I working hard all day… but we were together, and we were successful, so we were happy…" Ryuunosuke's father narrated with the same lucidity that unnerved Ataru and Mendou. "… But one day, a young foreigner appeared… dressed in well-traveled khakis and wearing a filthy-looking old hat. His name was Nicholas Fontaine, and he was passing through on his way to fight a war in a far away country."

The image of a younger looking, beardless Nick appeared in their heads. Someone youthful, with shorter hair, but those same menacing features. He sat down in the tea shop, his smile bright and charming to the Lady Fujinami, and his acknowledgement of the man of the house strong and sincere.

"He was a good man, or at least he seemed it. He said he was testing his limits in the arts, and I was happy to contribute to his education. As he had no place of his own, we allowed him to stay under our roof and work for us until it was time for his deployment. He was a damn good employee, an excellent student, and you absolutely adored him, Ryuunosuke…"

Ryuunosuke understood it now. This was how he knew about her? Was this why he really chose to train her in the first place?

Before she could even ask those questions, her father continued. "Little did I know, that as he lived under our humble roof, his lustful gaze had fallen upon my beloved Masako. With every passing day, he grew closer to her, tempting her with his charms and his talents, eroding every piece of her resistance as well as her love for me… and for you, Ryuunosuke."

They could only picture it, the younger Nick with his smiles, his nudges, his calculated steps closer into Masako's personal space… and the elder Fujinami being none the wiser of it. Until, of course, he stepped through the front door with Ryuunosuke in his arms to find an empty tea shop and a note on the nearest table–a wedding ring holding it down.

"Until one day… one day I came home from a fishing trip with you, my son… to find a letter with my beloved wife's wedding ring included. She hadn't even opened the shop, she was just gone without even the courage to say goodbye to me in person. It was with that loss, that our hardships truly began, Ryuunosuke… for that was the day our family lost its heart… and I lost the light of my life…!"

"H-how horrible…" Lum said, shocked at the depressing story.

Mendou's fury had returned, and so had his sword to his hands. "Suddenly, I'm a lot less concerned about what happens to me… all I want to do is slice this beast apart!"

"That's nice and all, but could you not point that at me?" Ataru gasped as he inched away from the edge of his sword.

Mendou turned to face Nick. "Sorry, Moroboshi, force of habit."

"Not even I'd try to steal another guy's girl!" Ataru defended himself, even though he silently added the caveat, "Unless she was _really_ hot."

"DARLING!" Lum screamed as she grabbed him and generated a tremendous amount of electricity. He hadn't been _that_ silent.

Shinobu turned to Ryuunosuke, who was being silent. In fact she was eerily silent, and her hands were now balled into trembling fists at her sides. She reached towards her, her heart welling up with sympathy. "Ryuunosuke-kun, I… I'm so sorry, I…"

Ryuunosuke's father barely fought back his tears of sorrow, as he converted it into anger, causing this baffling battle aura of his to grow even larger, sending the cracks in the ground spreading around him, with one passing between Nick's feet.

"Now that you know of my tragedy, _our_ tragedy… you must understand why you must get away from this man, Ryuunosuke," he said gravely, though with still intensifying anger. "You can see for yourself, the danger he poses to us! I won't let him twist you… pervert you… just so he can relive the pleasure of stealing my Masako again!"

He set his feet down, and shot straight towards Nick like an Olympic sprinter, each footstep kicking up a large cloud of dust and grass behind him.

"IT'S TIME TO BURY YOU FONTAINE, AS I SAID!" He bellowed as he threw a mighty right hook for Nick's face… and missed by a country mile.

Mendou and Ataru gasped, and Shinobu turned to look on in shock as Fujinami fell past Nick almost in slow motion, the teacher smiling as he looked back towards him out the corner of his eye.

"Aw geez, Fuji-chan, that was a real heartbreaker. Did you rehearse that all morning?"

Fujinami whirled right back around, this time with a haymaker left that could probably knock out half the school. It too whiffed, like a dog's nose sampling the air. That was a surprise to the elder Fujinami, having thought he had cleared the gap in their speed.

"What? Did you think I was gonna stand there and take it?" Nick taunted, hands in pocket as if he wasn't being attacked by a hulking martial artist whose very presence was rending the earth asunder.

"Talk all you want Fontaine, I will send you to back to the pit of hell that spawned you." Fujinami promised, whiffing on several more punches that only served to kick up a breeze.

"Better men than you have failed," Nick said slowly while dancing merrily out of the way.

Fujinami launched one more punch, this one kicking up a jet of dust in front of him, but Nick had avoided it entirely, walking past him and hopping away to turn around and face him.

"He's not even trying," Mendou realized.

Lum cocked her head to the side, as she began to see how he was able to avoid her back in the classroom. Their English teacher/disciplinarian was moving as his opponent moved, getting out of the attack even as it was going to where he had been. That level of precognition though.

Ataru, hardly a fighter, could only agree. "The only thing he's giving effort to is mocking Old Man Fujinami."

"Oya oya Fuji-chan," Nick said slowly, almost slurring the words. "Gotta do better than that!"

"Shut up!" Fujinami slashed at Nick with a cutting roundhouse that kicked up a gale of air pressure. It too missed by a considerable distance, not even the air pressure coming close to even grazing Nick, who simply looked like he was having a good time dancing out of the way. "LEAVE MY SON ALONE!"

Shinobu instinctively shifted her eyes to Ryuunosuke.

The girl was not disappointed, as the younger Fujinami was flush red with anger. Why wouldn't she be… to learn the truth about her mother's disappearance from her life-

"Feh, 'son' is it?" Ryuunosuke muttered to herself, before she decided she had thought on it enough. "And who is this son of yours, you walking mound of bullshit?!"

Wait, what?

Fujinami stopped, fist cocked back and turned his head to look at Ryuunosuke. "You, idiot boy!"

"Sure sure, I'm sure you thought you were going to pull the wool over my eyes again." Ryuunosuke snapped, rolling her eyes. "But guys, did any of you dancing along to his bullshit forget that in his little flashback, I was a boy?!"

Surprisingly, it was Ataru who understood why Ryuunosuke was so angry. "I think this is more of the old man's delusion isn't it? If he was being 100% honest, wouldn't he have dropped the boy nonsense?"

Mendou was dumbfounded at enormity of Fujinami's bullshit being enough that Moroboshi was making sense. "So you mean, it was all a lie?"

Ryuunosuke shook her head. "Not all of it, just the idea that this bullshitter is entirely innocent in all this." Nick had already confessed to stealing her mother away.

"Stupid boy, you're still being tricked!" Fujinami roared, lunging back at Nick. "Whatever spell you've cast on my son, undo it right now! GIVE ME BACK MY SON YOU ASSHOLE!"

"Are you sure you don't want to yell 'My Masako' instead?" Nick asked as he weaved around the attacks coming at him as if he was practicing some kind of dance. "You still can't quite get over the fact that she left you, huh?"

Fujinami froze mid-swing, just completely turned into a statue.

"You see kids, when you screw up the one good thing in your life, you got two options." Nick said, aiming it directly at his students. "You can either pack it in and admit you fucked up, or you can run away from the truth into a happy little delusion where you're not the bad guy–everyone else is."

The statue moved again, and Nick jumped up and over him, landing behind the charging berserker.

"Now, this is a story all about how one's life got flipped–turned upside-down." Nick said, looking like he hadn't just jumped over a man. "I'd like to take a minute if you don't mind, and tell you all about a jackass who lost his hot wife."

Fujinami seemed quite insistent on silencing Nick, almost like he was going to tell something very embarrassing, given how his attacks increased with such speed and violence that now the ground was starting to split under the force of his swings.

"How strong is your father?!" Ataru yelled at Ryuunosuke as they were buffeted by the winds from his attacks.

"Not enough, apparently!" Mendou suspected.

He was right. As visually impressive as it was, he was still no closer to even getting dirt on Nick than he when started. A massive tower of power, relegated to some kind of cooling fan as the wind blew everywhere from his swings.

"Is he predicting everything?" Shinobu wondered in amazement. "Can he see the future?"

"No…" Lum realized with no small confusion. "He's… _reading_ him."

"Like a menu at a dive bar," Nick taunted as he moved aside from another strike. "But anyway, my story…"

"DON'T!" This time Fujinami tried a vertical attack, an axe kick that plunged down for Nick's head, only to smash into the ground and create a small crater.

Nick stood back to back with Fujinami, his eyes casting off that daunting green light as he spoke. "Here's what's true: I did end up working at the Hamachiya for a year, because I was between wars and stuck in Japan for the time."

Fujinami whirled around, performing a sweeping chop that Nick leaned forward to avoid it. He twirled around and shuffled back to direct a straight punch over his shoulders.

"It diverges from fanon like this: Fuji-chan here was an idiot who ran up expenses because he insisted on keeping his business open in the off-season, and drove off customers by fighting anyone who criticised him."

Ryuunosuke nodded slowly. "Yeah, that's right."

"That hasn't changed," Ataru muttered.

Nick avoided another wild swing from Fujinami, before continuing his story. "As you might imagine, this caused things to be very, very strained between the old man and his wife. I'm not going to pretend to be some innocent scamp in all this, but trouble had come to paradise before I even set foot in their door."

"SILENCE!" Fujinami roared, launching another mighty attack and whiffing even more horribly than before.

"You didn't make it any better!" Shinobu argued. "In fact, he's still more sympathetic than you are!"

"Yeah!" Ataru retorted.

"Oh, let me change that for you!" Nick said. "You see, if there was one person." He avoided another punch. "He liked to belittle." Another. "And berate." Yet another. "And generally make miserable." Ooh, a kick this time. Missed. "It was his wife!"

There was a roar as Fujinami punched hard enough for Ataru, Shinobu, and Ryuunosuke's hair to be blown back despite them being well out of the path of the blow.

Nick smirked at Fujinami, the punch having gone completely over his shoulder. He stared at the panting, ragged, and flushed man, and let out a chuckle.

"You think you have it bad, Ryuu-chan? This man did everything he could to troll and infuriate his wife. They fought all the time, just like you do now, and when I was there at least it was over the same thing."

Ryuunosuke's eyes grew large, and when she spoke her voice trembled with anger. "… No."

"Daddy wanted a firstborn son, but Mommy gave him a little girl. He wasn't deterred though, he was going to raise him as a boy despite what her and everyone else said."

Nick then took and curled his fingers around Fujinami's fist. "Truth is, for a while I believed him. I actually thought that your mother was the crazy one for weeks until the fateful day I had to change your diaper. But after that misconception got cleared up, I made the decision that Fuji-chan didn't deserve his beautiful wife."

In desperation, Fujinami lashed out a spin kick, but only hit air as Nick vaulted up and over his head, bringing his captured arm up with him and landed behind his back, twisting his arm up and behind him. When Fujinami tried to elbow him, Nick caught that arm and then jumped up to plant both feet in the small of his back, hyperextending both arms painfully behind him while driving unbelievable pressure into his back.

"A standing Palo Special?!" Ataru exclaimed in horror.

Mendou was equally stunned. "S-such cruelty… the traditional sitting Palo Special is sheer torment, but this… applying all of his weight onto his back and arms at the same time…!"

"B-B-Bastard!" Fujinami howled in anguish.

"Once I had the resolve, everything after was easy. Masako-chan folded like a bad hand and we were getting up to all sorts of stuff whenever you weren't looking," Nick said as he leaned back a bit, digging the heels of his expensive shoes into Fujinami's back. "And she was _so_ happy."

Ryuunosuke's Dad was red-faced with rage, his face wet with sweat and tears and the drool that leaked down his lips through his clenched teeth. "HRRRRAAAA!"

"All good times come an end though, and I had to head off to fight another war. I wasn't a complete bastard, though, I made plans to take Masako and you with me, drop you off with my kid sister in the states. But somethin' happened while I was away, didn't it Fuji-chan?"

If the revelation that her Dad and Mom fought because of the former being the moron she always knew him had been mind-blowing, the revelation that this guy had actually tried to spare her the life she would have was something else even more powerful to Ryuunosuke.

"What did he do?" She asked.

Fujinami dove forward, pitching Nick over his head. Nick dove forward into a somersault, letting go of Fujinami's hands. Before he hit the ground, he threw something at Ryuunosuke and Shinobu, the latter snatching it out of the air… an old polaroid photograph.

"I rescued you!" Her father yelled. "I wasn't going to have you raised in America as something you weren't!"

Lum shook her head. "Even now he's like this?"

Shinobu stared at the photo, and her eyes grew wide. "Ah…! Ryuunosuke!"

Ryuunosuke turned towards her. "What?!"

She stopped trembling in anger, when she saw that it was a picture of a small group of people. One was definitely Nick, younger and clean-shaven in what looked like an American Marine Corps officer's dress uniform. With him were a stunningly beautiful Japanese woman in a sundress holding a baby in her arms, another woman with Nick's deadly green eyes but a much friendlier face wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and a easy-smiling Chinese man in business casual clothes holding a baby of his own right beside the second woman.

The Japanese woman looked so much like Ryuunosuke, that she could've been her older sister.

"This… this is…" Ryuunosuke's eyes grew wider, when she realized they were standing in a park with the unmistakable skyline of Seattle, Washington in the background.

"After I took you to America with me, this fantastic maniac literally swam across the Pacific Ocean to get his kid back. Of course when he got there, he proceeded to raise such a huge fuss that to get him to leave her alone, your mother very reluctantly gave you up and put you on the first plane back to Tokyo."

He shrugged his shoulders. "I would've done something about it, but there was a war that got intense, I got married, my sister wanted me to train her baby, and a lot of things fell by the wayside. That's the whole sad story, from my side of things. You don't have to take it as the truth, but it's either that or believing your Dad's take… _son."_

Ryuunosuke's hand trembled, as she stared at the old photograph. A realization came to her, as she looked at it. Her mother didn't look like any of the women in her father's scrapbooks. None of them even came close to looking like the woman in this picture, the very first of her mother that she'd ever seen. That just begged the question: who were all of those women Ryuunosuke was in pictures with?

She had one idea, and the moment it flickered across her brain, she was beyond the point of fury.

"Destroy him," she growled. "Destroy that son of a bitch."

Ataru, having gotten a peek at the picture, was aghast. How could anyone mistreat a wife so unbelievably hot?! It was an insult to all men everywhere! "Break his arms!"

Mendou found himself in agreement. "You don't deserve to call yourself a man, Fujinami!"

Lum refrained from piling on, she was less interested in the drama and more the mechanics.

Shinobu was equally murderous as she seconded Ataru's call. "His legs too! A jerk like him deserves to suffer!"

Nick smirked. "Oh, if I'm going to get _fancy,_ you're going to have to meet me halfway, what do you kids say? Make my job easier, and I give you a show."

"Agreed!" Mendou declared vehemently. "I humbly concede to your authority, Nicholas Fontaine Sherman!"

"That's fine by me! DO IT!" Shinobu yelled.

"DEATH! DEATH! DEATH! DEATH!" Ataru chanted.

"A show sounds great!" Lum bubbled, not really bothering to think of consequences of what she was asking for.

Ryuunosuke drew in a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. "What did I just tell you to do, Sherman-sensei?"

"Well then, time to put it to bed, eh Fuji-chan?" Nick asked before he regarded his opponent again

Fujinami, looking shaken and demoralized, tried to shore up some kind of bravado as he turned around and faced Ryuunosuke. "After everything I've done for you, foolish boy! You're going to betray me-!"

He stopped talking then, as Nick suddenly collided with him elbow first, driving it into his solar plexus and lifting him off his feet. The clouds of dust and smoke that had wreathed the PE area of the schoolyard were suddenly blasted away, and the windows of the school rattled.

"Oi, she's told you plenty of times by now," Nick said, "But she's a woman, damn it."

He then gave Ryuunosuke's old man a depraved, seedy smile before he whispered quietly to him. "I promise to take good care of her though, just like Masako-chan."

The five spectators didn't see the transitioning moves, but there was an almighty bang and suddenly Nick had replaced his elbow with his left knee, and the windows of a building a fair distance away from the school and directly behind Fujinami completely shattered as if hit by a bomb blast.

Unexpectedly, however, Ryuunosuke's Dad went nowhere. With a gurgle and foam coming from his mouth, the elder Fujinami just collapsed to the ground, every bone in his body broken given the way he laid there like a human-shaped sack of legos.

"Well, that about wraps this session of family counseling up." Nick dusted off his hands and then turned to his students. "Mendou-kun, Shinobu-kun, I expect to see you in auditions for Crusader positions."

Though he already knew who the one was getting in. Emotions were fun to play with, but nature trumped them always. Speaking of which, he deliberately walked to Ryuunosuke's side and looked at her. "I know I haven't much to say for not doing anything in this past decade and a half, but if it makes you feel better I'm very good at paying off on my mistakes."

"… You came back," Ryuunosuke just said, while still staring at the picture.

"It's only the beginning, things are only going to get crazier from here on out." Nick said, shrugging his shoulders. "I'd like to say that I won't be the cause of some of the impending madness, but..."

"If you're not the cause of half of it I'll be surprised." Ryuunosuke said.

Nick beamed. "Heh, yep."

She then looked up at him. "Is… is she still around?"

"Yeah, she lives in Canada… works as a voice actress and is doing well for herself," Nick replied. "But she never forgot about you." He patted her on the shoulder. "You'll see her again before you know it."

Ryuunosuke looked at the picture again, and took a deep breath to try to fight down the tears that were trying to form in her eyes.

Nick chuckled before he looked at all the other kids with a surprisingly gentle smile. "It's almost time to get back to class, let's not be late now. Education is important after all."

He led the way with Ryuunosuke close behind, her free hand coming up to wipe at her face

Ataru lingered for a second, looking at the sack of shit that the elder Fujinami had become and shaking his head. "He's only been back in her life for a day and already he's a better Dad than the old man."

Mendou nodded, feeling as if some kind of nightmare had finally been slain. "It truly is a shame that Ryuunosuke had to deal with him in the first place. I shall have someone remove that mess in a bit."

Lum floated towards the school, offering up a bit of her own spaced out wisdom as she went. "It certainly feels like something good happened for once."

Shinobu laughed a little as she turned to walk back to school. "Yeah, it's strange to say that around these parts."

It was strange indeed, with the portents of a storm on the horizon, that they would all feel at ease. But that seemed to be another day's issue so today would be for basking in this alien feeling.

 **|Ryuunosuke's Father . . . . . Retires|**

"Due to revelations concerning past misconduct, Fujinami-san has been fired." A notice posted outside the school shop read. "At this time, we are looking for someone to replace him."

Despite such good fortune, an ill wind was blowing, portending a dire shift in the fates. An oncoming storm, approaching without mercy and threatening to swallow whole this school. It would appear a victim had already been made, and now was to wait for the cry of thunder.

"Just what in the world is happening now?" A gorgeous woman with long, shimmering black hair and a white lab coat worn over a yellow shirt and flowery skirt asked. She was looking at the notice as a pit formed in her stomach. "What has Moroboshi's demonic luck brought on us now?"

This woman, Sakura, was the school's nurse and a miko in her free time. She had been curing the maladies of the school for a time now, but it would seem things might need ratcheting up. Who was this mysterious new English Teacher/Disciplinarian and what did it mean for this school?

For certain, she would soon have the answers.

In the teacher's office, Nick was sitting at his new desk, dialing a telephone number on a smartphone as he hummed a bleak song, stopping only to murmur to himself as he put the phone to his ear. "I hope this is still her number…"

The line then clicked, and a woman with a vaguely European accent answered. " _Hello? Keeper speaking."_

"Mercedes, honey! It's me, Nick," he cheerfully greeted.

There was a bit of silence, before the woman answered. " _This is a joke, no? You should be dead."_

"In at least thirteen countries. But enough about me, I have a job you might be interested in!"

There was another pause, before the woman answered. " _What do you have in mind?"_

Nick looked around and then in a hushed tone he spoke. "I'm in Nerima, for The Restoration."

The sound of something glass or ceramic breaking in the background brought a smile to Nick's lips. It became a grin when he heard the woman's voice, now excited.

" _I'll get the boys and we'll be there in a week."_

* * *

A/N: Sometimes I feel as though I am my own worst enemy. Cuz every night in bed I kick the living shit outta me.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Urusei Yatsura is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and AnimEigo. Support the official release, or don't… because _holy shit._

 **Sensei  
** **A Urusei Yatsura Story  
** **Chapter 3/?**

 **|Oh What a Night|**

The first day of Ryuunosuke's training was not what she'd thought it would be. She earnestly expected something a little more practical, like training at an actual dojo, but as his strange and convoluted method of introducing himself to her proved… practicality didn't appear to be at the top of the list of Nick's priorities. They had left home just after sundown, and had begun a stroll down a busy street lined with stores, bars, and restaurants near the Nerima Ward's main office.

"So where exactly are we goin'?" Ryuunosuke asked, her tone a bit rougher like she was used to now that she was one on one with Nick again. "Ain't we gonna train?"

"Sure we're gonna train," Nick replied, "But you have to recognize something that I may have neglected to explain about myself."

He looked out the corner of his eye at her. "I believe that the best and only way to teach someone anything is to have them experience it firsthand. Screaming kiais and performing katas in a dojo all day is good for review, but nothing prepares you for a real life situation like a real life situation."

"So what, you're gonna wrap me up in sausage and throw me into a pit full of cats or something?" Ryuunosuke asked.

Nick let out a laugh. "You know about Cat Fist, huh?"

" _You_ know about Cat Fist?" Ryuunosuke asked back.

"I invented it; mostly to weed out idiots who try to shortcut their way through training by achieving some kind of ultimate power." He chuckled again. "Yet to meet anyone dumb enough to actually fall for it, though."

For now, his faith in martial artists was secure. For now.

Ryuunosuke would rather not tell Nick about her father's attempt at teaching her the Cat Fist. It ended up with her spending three days and nights fighting cats. Were it not for the fact that she subjected her old man to the very same "training" afterward and enjoyed the catharsis that followed, she'd probably have an uncontrollable phobia or mental trauma or something.

"So what are we gonna do?" She asked.

"We're going to go to the bad side of town and stir up some shit, of course!" Nick replied cheerfully.

The recovering tomboy gave him a flat look. "Hey, teach? Isn't Tomobiki the bad side of town?"

Nick smirked to his pupil. "Oh, you haven't seen the _bad_ side of town at all. There's a place here in Nerima that is so much worse than Tomobiki."

Now Ryuunosuke was confused. "What, Butsumetsu?"

She found out soon enough as they walked under an arch welcoming them to a neighborhood known by most in the area as a more upper class and cleaner one. A wealthier area of the town, this was where two of the best High Schools in Nerima were located, St. Hebereke's, and the much more notorious Kolkhoz High School. This was also the seat of the Mizunokouji Sports Empire, another one of the wealthiest families in the country.

"How is Taian the _bad_ side of town?" A completely befuddled Ryuunosuke asked as she looked up and then back at the arch they passed under. "This place is so rich and classy that even my old man acts like he has some decorum when we pass through."

Nick let out a laugh. "Really? Man, I wish I could've seen that. That shitlord was so dumb he couldn't even understand why people would leave the shop after he beat them up for criticizing his shit cooking."

Ryuunosuke blanched in disgust.

He looked at her. "Does he still do that?"

The further disgust told him everything. "Ha, fucking idiot."

He then looked ahead. "Anyway, it's time for our first lesson. To properly perform it, we're going to need a few things. First…"

Reaching into his bag, he pulled out a Seattle Mariners Baseball cap and slipped it on his head, before he pulled out a thin Vancouver Canucks beanie cap and slipped it on Ryuunosuke's head. She removed the hat and looked at the logo, before slipping it on and adjusting it to a more comfortable position and fit.

When she finished, she found herself offered a black domino mask with a sheer mesh over the eyes, as Nick finished putting one of his own on. Suddenly she had a bad feeling about this.

"Are we about to rob someone?" She asked.

Nick shook his head. "Oh no, don't worry. Tonight we're actually going to be doing a little bit of good. Vigilante style."

Doing "good" in what Nick considered a "bad" neighborhood. The bad feeling Ryuunosuke had got markedly worse.

"Oh don't get all pessimistic on me," Nick snapped at her. "Besides, you're going to like where we're going tonight!"

"Where is that?" Ryuunosuke asked before Nick stopped her and directed her gaze to their destination.

Upon seeing it, her eyes grew large behind the mask. In front of them was a three story building with the word _ARCADIA_ in big white LED lit letters on the roof over the glass double doors protected by a bouncer. To the right of the bouncer, was a long line of women were waiting to enter. At the end of the line, where it officially began, was a projected board featuring the faces of over two dozen handsome young men ranging from late teens to mid twenties.

Ryuunosuke needed a few seconds to process it, before her face broke out into a bright blush. She whirled on Nick, pointing at the building while stammering. "Th-th-this is a Host Club!"

Nick folded his arms and nodded. "Yep!"

She whirled back around, and then up at him, her face so flushed it was glowing. "W-why are we at a Host Club?!"

"I'm good friends with the owner, and she needs bouncers," Nick replied.

Ryuunosuke turned back towards the Club, steam rising off her head. A Host Club, where handsome young men entertained young women, flirting with them, serving them drinks and food, and devoting their time to making them feel like royalty. To go to one was one of the many things Ryuunosuke wanted to do as a girl.

She then stopped and turned back to face him. "I can't go in there, I'm underage!"

"Oh relax, it's not like anyone's going to stop you," Nick reassured her before he led her to the door and waved to the bouncer, who stepped aside and let them in.

Arcadia was a packed house, a stylish mixture of restaurant and nightclub, where women from their late teens to eternal late teens sat at tables with handsome young men with immaculate style in terms of clothes and hair. More young men were passing by back and forth, with trays of food and drink, some carrying entire bottles of expensive liquor. On a runway-style stage that was the centerpiece of the restaurant, young men strolled up and down, stopping to pose fabulously or gesture flirtatiously with the spectating clientele.

"Ah… Ah… this… this… a place…" Ryuunosuke, her face red and a bit of blood trickling from her nose, could barely form a coherent sentence as she looked back and forth among all the handsome boys.

She looked up at the stage, and one of the men pointed to her and winked, causing her to swoon on the spot. "Ohmahgaa…"

Nick swatted her on the back of the head. "Hey, could you focus for a little bit?"

Ryuunosuke snapped out of her lust-induced trance and lashed out at him in return, missing wide as she expected to midway through the swing.

"C'mon, we're gonna meet the boss lady of the joint and find you a position to work," Nick said as he led her through the seemingly relaxed and festive club, all the way to the double doors that led to the behind the scenes.

They made an immediate left, entering an elevator that took them up to the third floor of the establishment, the button labeled "Authorized Personnel Only", which opened to reveal a surprisingly homely living room-style setting compared to the exotic chaos down below. There were still a few handsome men around, but they seemed to be relaxing on couches or playing video games, or just resting.

It was a complete reversal of the atmosphere Ryuunosuke first plunged into, though the scenery was still delicious.

"Hey guys," Nick said as he walked in. He didn't get much of a response.

"Ah, it's Kamen Yarou," one of the young men said dryly, before doing a double-take at the sight of Ryuunosuke. "… But he's brought a cute girl with him this time."

This caught the attention of the other young men in the break room, who all looked over at Ryuunosuke. Under their scrutiny, her brain kind of fizzled and she scanned the room, suddenly feeling like both a rabbit cornered by wolves and a tiger presented with a feast of deer.

"Uh… um… h-hello…" She said with a shy bow.

"Oh wow, she's actually cute, too!" A particularly pretty blonde-haired, blue-eyed young man said. "Not like that she-wolf he brought around that other time."

Nick was suddenly looming over the young man in question, his green eyes lit with murderous intent. "Eh? Repeat that, you little shit?"

"Hiiiii!" The poor boy squealed as he cowered in fear of Nick, hands over his head and knees drawn to his chest. "Not the face! I'm not done with my shift!"

Nick stood closer, looming more threateningly over him. "Really? You think you can finish the night with your kneecaps on backward?"

Ryuunosuke then gasped, before there was a loud thwack, and Nick was brought down low in a humble bow. Across the back of his head was a long, heavy-looking cane with an ornate, leather-bound handle that made the whole thing look more like a sheathed katana than a cane. It was held by a tall, robust, older Eastern European woman, she looked to be in her late 30s, but her long stark white hair trailing down to her waist made her seem much older. She wore a thick gray wool turtleneck sweater with braided patterns down its front, back, and sleeves, and a long, flowing black skirt.

"If you want to play rough with my boys, Nicholas, I'm going to have to ask you to pay a little extra for the service," the woman said to him with roughly accented Japanese. The accent was… Russian? But that wasn't Ryuunosuke's main concern, not after what she just saw, but she put it aside for the moment.

Nick stood up, rubbing the top of his head. "That wasn't my interest."

Ryuunosuke just continued to gape at the woman, who noticed her stare. She narrowed her eyes at Nick. "This one's a bit young for you, don't you think?"

Nick lowered his hand from his head. "That's not my interest either. This is Ryuunosuke, Masako's daughter." He then looked to Ryuunosuke. "Stand up straight, this is that old friend of mine, Sashenka."

Sashenka, as she was addressed, smirked wryly and nodded to the girl. "Look at you, grown up into such a lively young woman."

Ryuunosuke flushed a bit. "You knew me when I was a baby?"

"Nick's sister sent a photo to me when she called for help in dealing with your father after he came to get you back," Sashenka sighed. "Of course, during time I was up to my tits in fucking Chechens so I couldn't come soon enough to resolve the situation."

Sashenka stepped up and reached out to pinch Ryuunosuke's cheek, causing her to flinch and squirm. "You're such a beautiful girl; the spitting image of your mother!"

And as she was freed Ryuunosuke was flushing brightly again, unable to handle such praise. "Ah… th-thank you…"

"And so modest, too, definitely unlike Allison's rude little shit," Sashenka added.

Nick gave Sashenka the same dark look he burned the pretty boy with, but the Russian woman paid it no mind. "I thank you for bringing her here, Nicholas, shall we discuss what I need of you?"

Nick ended his glare and nodded. "Yeah, go ahead."

Ryuunosuke stepped back as Sashenka turned around and stepped away from the two, resting her weight on her cane. "These past couple of days my darling boys have been complaining of painful customers being a little too pushy with them. I've gone down to the floor to throw them out twice, but apparently the wrong message is being sent."

"Painful Customers?" Ryuunosuke repeated.

"Troublesome sorts who make it hard for my darling boys to work and enjoy themselves," Sashenka replied. "Some of these _out of towners_ have some cultural misconceptions about how a Host Club works. If any show up, I want you to kindly remind them that this is a place of entertainment… not a brothel or a matchmaking service."

The woman then snorted. "I came to this country to run a legitimate business. None of that Balalaika nonsense people keep comparing me to."

Ryuunosuke understood. "So all I gotta do is make sure the customers keep their hands to themselves? That doesn't sound hard."

"Nyet, it shouldn't," Sashenka said to her. "I'll make it easy for you, da? You can do it undercover, and get to have a little fun while you work."

Ryuunosuke recoiled at that, before she grew suspicious. "Fun? Like… fun _how?"_

Sashenka looked towards the same blonde pretty boy who Nick terrorized, and then back to Ryuunosuke. "You'll get to experience a free sample of my establishment's services as a 'Secret Customer'."

Nick glanced over at Ryuunosuke, and chuckled when he saw her mouth fall open and bright shimmering stars appear in her eyes, as she realized what she'd been offered.

"You mean… I get to be a… a customer? You don't… you don't want me to dress as a man and go out there to act like a host or anything?" Ryuunosuke asked, unsure if this was actually happening to her.

Sashenka gave her an amused look. "Why would I have you act as man, when I have so many darling boys who can do that just fine? No, dear, you will be woman tonight and you will protect my darling boys that way."

Now the sparkles had begun to appear around her, along with the bubbly haze of a shoujo background. "I'm a woman tonight…"

"Spasiba, little one." Sashenka looked over at Nick, her lips in a thin frown. She then looked back to the blonde-haired boy. "You there, 'Jaune', you'll be her host, da?"

The blonde pretty boy stood up and posed in a faintly awkward attempt to look cool–which was actually part of his appeal. "Okay, Mama!"

"Jaune" turned and bowed politely to Ryuunosuke, who teetered a bit in place, still swooning over the fun she was about to have. "We should be getting to work, eh?"

Ryuunosuke snapped to attention, and quickly nodded. "Yes, r-right!"

Nick waved the two off. "Go have fun, but don't have too much fun, okay? I'll be keeping in touch over your phone, Ryuu-chan."

"Right!" Ryuunosuke said before she was led off by her Host for the evening. Watching the two leave the break room for the elevator, Nick smiled and turned to the owner of the establishment.

"What will you have me do, Sasha?" Nick asked.

Sashenka returned the smile. "You will be here with me, we have things to discuss."

 **|As the Crows Fly|**

Outside and across the street from Arcadia, behind an emergency call box, Ataru peered out and at the establishment with a suspicious gaze aimed at the host club. Completely by chance and not due to him stalking her from a distance, he had come upon Nick and Ryuunosuke making their way over to Taian. Curious about their nighttime excursion, and not because he was desperate to find a weakness of their new teacher, he followed them all the way to this mysterious and stylish place where women and women only were lining up to go in.

A Host Club, he'd heard of these places. Women wanting to feel spoiled and good about themselves came to these places and pay money for handsome guys to treat them like Queens. Ataru despised the places on principle, any man who competed with Ataru for the attention of a lovely woman was an enemy–and these shallow places that took money from women to toy with their feelings were the _worst._

He knew that Ryuunosuke was a girl who was very fragile in regards to praise of her femininity. Without a doubt, a place like this–dedicated to treating her like the girliest girl who ever girled–would overwhelm her. In her gratitude for being brought to a superficial dump like this, she'd follow Nick to the ends of the Earth.

"Is that your plan, Sherman? Spoil Ryuu-chan into becoming your obedient servant with a bunch of shallow pretty boys who'll never love her like I do? Unforgivable!" He seethed.

He clenched a fist. "I'll show these second rate flirts what a true master of the craft is!"

"Oh will you now, Darling?"

Ataru didn't have time to voluntarily tense up before the jab of electricity through his nervous system did it for him. Falling over, wisps of smoke rising from his body, he gazed up at Lum, who gave him a caustic look before turning her attention towards the Host Club. "So what's that place?"

Ataru managed to recover a bit and rolled over onto his stomach to maintain a low profile–a hard thing to do when a girl as brightly colored as scantily clad as his fiancé was hovering directly above his head. "It's a Host Club, women go there and pay effeminate pretty-boys to flirt with them. They're disgusting."

Lum's caustic look faded, becoming curious. What a foreign and startling concept. "Wait, women pay actual money? To be flirted with?"

"Yeah, and Sherman brought Ryuu-chan to that place while wearing disguises, he's up to no good for sure." Ataru said as he pulled out a pair of binoculars to scope out the door and then the large African-American bouncer who stood beside it, letting the young women in at intervals.

Lum was still stuck on the whole concept of the Host Club. "What are the men at host clubs like?"

"They're pretty girly guys, like TV Drama actors but even more fake and shallow," Ataru replied before he focused on the pretty young women waiting to get in. The view in the binoculars then grew larger, as he trotted right up to them with his tongue lolled out.

"Hey ladies!" Ataru greeted as he carelessly tossed the binoculars to his left. "How about instead of paying for some guy to flirt with you, I'll pay you to have dinner with me?"

His advance was met almost universally with disgust and dismissal from the women, who could only see the lecherous intent in what he was trying to pass off as a charming smile. He caught sight of a particularly pretty, woman in the crowd and held up his black book. "Can I have your phone number? Your measurements?"

"Oh, gross," the woman in question said before gesturing rudely at him. "Go away! I waited in line all evening!"

"Don't waste your money!" Ataru insisted. "Come with me, and we can have dinner at a real place, and then maybe go to a love hotel! All my treat!"

"DARLING!" Lum yelled angrily, and Ataru was painfully zapped again by Lum, prompting cheers from the women waiting in line.

"Ugh…!" Ataru groaned as he tried to get up again.

"You never offer to pay for anything with me!" Lum complained.

Ataru rubbed the back of his head, as more smoke rose from his body. "Owow… that's your problem this time…?"

"Hey, I didn't know we could use powers here," one of the women then said, prompting Ataru and Lum to look over in confusion.

To both of their surprise, the woman they were staring at was a particularly beautiful Oni, complete with wildly vibrant orange hair and yellow horns that sprouted from it. She was accompanied by her companion, a much smaller, fish-eyed alien wearing a spacesuit with a pink ribbon on the glass dome helmet.

"I think it's because she's the ambassador, Dappaya!" The more alien alien replied.

Ataru recoiled, and looked around the crowd of women, and to his surprise, he realized that almost every other "woman" in line wasn't merely human. From the human-like Oni to the more bizarre fish aliens, and lizard-like space cases, the density of aliens rubbing shoulders with regular humans was a bit of a surprise to both of them.

"So many aliens," Lum said, "Where did they come from? Why are they here?"

Ataru shrugged his shoulders. "To waste their money, too?"

At that moment, there was a shout from the front of the line. "What do you mean that he is taken?!"

Lum recoiled at the voice, and looked towards the front of the line. She recognized it, despite its high volume the pitch was still on the low end, fitting for a woman of great sensuality and beauty. "Oh no, is that…?"

Ataru was up on his feet without any further difficulty, tongue hanging from his mouth and hearts in his eyes. "I know that beautiful voice anywhere!"

At the front of the line, a beautiful woman wearing a leotard with a deep and wide cut in the front and kneehigh boots brandished a large brown five-pointed leaf at the bouncer. She was utterly livid, her fair features colored by the flush of rage, her hair, black with green coloring styled to resemble partially folded wings flared out, and her proud teeth bared. "I waited forty minutes in this queue to be with my host, and this is what you give me?"

The bouncer shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "Sorry, ma'am, soon as 'Jaune' got off break he got a client who was in line before you."

Hovering close to her, two tiny imp-like crows with wings on their backs hovered around her, attempting to get her to calm her ire. "Princess, please control your temper!"

They went ignored. "What client?! When I entered this line, I was given the option to choose the blonde, and I reserved him!"

The bouncer shook his head. "I can't disclose the identity of any clientele or the circumstances that move them up or down the queue. What I can say is that you can get another host at a discount-"

The woman leaned forward, glaring up at the bouncer. "I do not want a discount, I want 'Jaune!' Do you know who I am? I am the Princess of the Crow Tengu-!"

"Kurama-sama~!" Ataru wailed as he fell upon the woman, wrapping his arms around her waist and nuzzling her from behind. "Oh baby, I missed you so much!"

One of the tiny tengu let out a horrified squawk. "Ah! It's Moroboshi, the pervert!"

"Get away from the Princess!" The second tengu demanded.

Kurama went from furious to pale, before she squirmed in an attempt to throw Ataru off. "L-let go…! Let go of me, Moro-!" She managed to get an arm in position, and drove her elbow into his face. "-boshi!"

Ataru went spilling onto his back, a big smile on his face after having had the opportunity to hold one of his favorite women so close. He then sat up, still grinning. "Don't waste your time and money on this place! I'll be happy to spoil you."

His eyebrows waggled suggestively, and the Princess of the Crow Tengu recoiled in plainly visible disgust. "Eugh!"

A much larger bolt of lightning than the previous two examples came down from above, striking Ataru and causing him to flip about in place. "Gyaaaaah!"

Lum floated down, arms akimbo, and landed before Kurama. "What are you doing back here? Haven't you learned your lesson?"

Kurama huffed haughtily at Lum. "Someone with taste such as your own wouldn't understand."

Lum narrowed her eyes. Did she just throw shade at her? When her criteria for the "ideal man" were 1. Be Hot, and 2. Don't be Ataru?

"Besides, what does it look like I am doing here? I am here to be entertained by a real man. If I am suitably impressed, he and I will mate," Kurama explained matter-of-factly.

"Yo, that ain't allowed-" The bouncer tried to say, but was cut off by Ataru of all people.

"I've been saying it all night, don't settle for less, mate with a true master of love-!"

Lum zapped him again. "Oh, if that's all then, you'd better get to it." She held her hand out, catching Ataru by the face as he mindlessly clawed at the air to get to Kurama. Infuriated by his shamelessness, Lum zapped him even harder. "I really don't know if I can hold him back."

Kurama's disgusted sneer grew, before the big black bouncer cleared his throat. "Ahem."

She looked back up at him. "What?!"

"That discount is still available, your highness," the bouncer suggested. "You can go in and pick any of the other available hosts and get thirty percent off."

Kurama's eyes narrowed. She'd really wanted the blonde one, but now her arm was being twisted by this shrewd human using the pressure of Moroboshi against her. She glanced towards Lum, who was still zapping her fiancé and holding him back in spite of his overwhelming eagerness to reach her.

"Please Princess," the first Tengu pleaded, "Just take the discount!"

"Yes, before Moroboshi is set loose!" Cried the second.

Seeing that she was either going to settle for some other host, or be set upon by Moroboshi until she could get to her ship and flee, Kurama relented. "I will take your generous offer."

"Fantastic," the bouncer replied before stepping aside for Kurama and her entourage to enter.

"No, don't do it! Kurama-chan!" Ataru pled in vain as Kurama and her tengu passed through the doors. "No…!"

Lum only then stopped shocking him, and Ataru collapsed to a heap. "Do you even think about what you do?!"

Evidently not, because Ataru was back up on his feet, looking as determined as ever. "If any of those pretty boys think they're gonna get to flirt and play around with Kurama, they've got another thing coming!"

"What about Ryuunosuke?" Lum asked, but went unanswered.

"Homeboy if you think you're coming anywhere near my club with all of _that."_ He gestures to Ataru, indicating all of him. "Then _you_ got another thing coming."

Ataru became livid. "Come on, please?! Can't I get in there?!"

The Bouncer stared down at Ataru… and then shrugged his shoulders in compliance. "Sure you can."

The sudden turn around threw Ataru off. "Rea-?"

Threw him off long enough for The Bouncer to sweep low and then connect an uppercut with Ataru's chin. Lum watched, impassively, as a gust of wind blew out around The Bouncer and Ataru, before the latter accelerated into the sky and over the rooftops across the street. Lum and the other women waiting to get into the club immediately broke into applause.

Dusting his hands, the Bouncer watched as Ataru became a gleam high in the night sky. Without addressing Lum with a look, he asked her. "He's not going to go away, is he?"

"Nope," Lum replied.

"Fantastic," he lamented.

Lum then asked him. "Say, you're an American, right?"

The Bouncer turned to her then. "Yeah, why?"

Lum looked left and right before leaning close and asking. "What do you know about… serial killers?"

The Bouncer glanced back towards the club, and then to Lum. "… More than I'd like."

Tonight was gonna get weird.

 **|Outsiders|**

For all of her desire to live life as a girl, Ryuunosuke didn't know how to. She had ideas of how girls should act, but when it came down to actually being a girl she was as hopelessly ignorant as they came. So she was super nervous as she sat down at a booth with 'Jaune', who immediately poured her a drink of something non-alcoholic with a bit of handsome flair.

"You're really tense you know," the blonde young man pointed out to her after filling her champagne glass with sparkling grape juice.

Ryuunosuke looked over at him, then around at the other women being entertained by their handsome hosts. "I can't help it, I've never done anything like this before."

'Jaune's' smile turned into a playful grin. "That's pretty obvious. But that's why you should relax!"

He took her hand in his. "It's my job to take care of you, you know? I'm going to make you feel like a princess." He leaned close. "Yannow, even if we are supposed to be just pretending."

Ryuunosuke's already pink-tinged face became a brighter red as she looked away from him and took her glass to guzzle it down.

'Jaune' let out a laugh, before he draped his arms over the top of the booth's seat, with one arm going behind Ryuunosuke, who noticed this right away and began to blush deeper. "So, you're that bastard's new student, huh?"

She gave pause and looked at him. "You know about…?"

"There ain't a guy here who doesn't, but I'm a little more privileged than the rest, I've known Nick most of my life," 'Jaune' revealed as he poured her more grape juice. "He and Granny back there used to fight together in wars and junk."

Ryuunosuke took a more measured sip once her glass was filled. "Did he train you?"

'Jaune' shook his head. "Nah, Granny trained me–but I'm more a lover than a fighter."

Ryuunosuke looked over the well-dressed pretty-boy. He certainly didn't look like much of a fighter. Then again, he didn't look like Sashenka's grandson either. "Do you know what I'm in for, at least?"

'Jaune' smiled wryly. "If he's gonna train you anything like Granny trained me, you're in for hell on Earth. But! You're gonna come out of it a great martial artist, I bet."

Was this pretty boy suggesting he was a good fighter under all of that glamour? That actually made Ryuunosuke laugh a bit, 'Jaune' reminded her of Mendou. She took another sip of her grape juice and then kept laughing. "You're not a fighter. Look at you, you're all… pretty and stuff."

"Appearance is no indicator of ability," 'Jaune' protested. "I mean, look at you."

"You were beggin' Sensei to not break your face," Ryuunosuke shot back, completely missing the compliment.

"I'm not _that_ good a fighter." 'Jaune' took his own sip. "Granny trained me, but only she has any business getting in a straight one-on-one fight with that animal."

Ryuunosuke nodded, after seeing her actually land a hit on him, she couldn't help but agree. "So tell me this: if you can fight, why aren't you dealin' with the painful customers?"

"What, and be known as a host willing to hit a client? I may as well quit then," 'Jaune' resolutely replied before he gestured around to the women around. "But more than that? I don't think I'd win."

Ryuunosuke looked around, and then did a double-take with a gasp. Many of the women being entertained by hosts weren't human! Their alien looks, their equipment, and in the case of the oni their horns… this place was absolutely crawling with extraterrestrials! The only aliens she'd ever seen before were the ones usually connected to Ataru's nonsense, who were these guys?

"Wait, what the heck? Where did all of these aliens come from?!" Ryuunosuke asked in disbelief.

"Some of them are visitors, tourists you know?" 'Jaune' replied. "But actually most of them live here in Taian."

To say that shocked Ryuunosuke was an understatement. She tried not to openly gawp but it was a close thing. "Th-they're living here?!"

"Why wouldn't they? The Oni have de facto conquered the Earth and opened it up for the rest of the known galaxy to come and go as they please," 'Jaune' answered with a shrug. "Or did you think everyone would stay away from a heretofore unexplored planet?"

She actually hadn't considered the Earth conquered at all. The fact the Ataru won the game and the Oni seemed to recede except for Lum and a handful of her friends kind of told her the danger was over. "So they come to Earth to be showered with Earthmen attention?"

"Most of them come here to live, as it Earth is both luxurious and cheap." 'Jaune' was a font of knowledge. "But some of them do come to take part in what they view as bizarre Earth culture."

"So why Taian?" Ryuunosuke asked, a thoughtful look on her face. "There are much better places than here, even with the small gated community, Taian is at least 80% sleazy garbage."

"Well they don't really know or understand that." 'Jaune' explained, sighing. "It's a sad state of affairs but the Saginomiya family, who owns much of the land here in Taian, leased a lot of it to the aliens at the first opportunity."

The Saginomiya family? Ryuunosuke, who spent most of her life by the sea, had never heard of them. "They're a big deal around here?"

"They're the guys who run this side of town basically, old Zaibatsu style stuff," 'Jaune' replied. "When the aliens showed up, they sold out to 'em. Even kicking entire apartment complexes out and razing buildings without a care."

"Why didn't anyone stop 'em?!" Ryuunosuke demanded, finding that sheer injustice intolerable.

"No, not at all. It's just, suddenly the Diet tripped over several billion in tax revenue they didn't collect before," Jaune replied.

"Oh…" Money, just like with Mendou. "How'd this place stick around?"

"Granny carved out this place for herself and us, bought the land this place sits on with money she made fighting her last big war and everything. The very image of an entrepreneur making it big for herself."

"By starting a Host Club?" Ryuunosuke asked.

"Is that so bad?" 'Jaune' teased with a flirtatious smile.

She turned red and a tiny wisp of steam came off her head. "No, not at all." She had to change the topic or she'd become a 'bad' customer. "So, uh, how is life in Taian?"

'Jaune' certainly failed to mince his words. "To be perfectly honest? Between the aliens and the bullshit with the people who run this side of town, it has not been all that great."

Ryuunosuke nodded. "The Saginomiya Family's pretty awful."

"The Mizunokouji, the Mendou, and the Kuno families aren't that great either. You'd think the wealthy elite of Tokyo would care more about what's happening to their country, to the world… but even the mighty Mendou are selling out to the Aliens because having more money than they'd ever need is more important than basic human dignity."

Ryuunosuke's face tightened at that. Mendou and his rival, Tobimaro… this guy lumped them in with the jerks like the Saginomiya. "Are they all that bad?"

"I wouldn't call it actual malice, just… vapidness. They're so removed from the rest of the world, inside their gated communities, that the world could literally be coming to an end and they'd only be inconvenienced in that it'd hurt their wealth."

This time Ryuunosuke only nodded slowly.

"Meanwhile… the less fortunate of people have to deal with these obnoxious aliens and their antics day in and day out. The end result is people living in a daze, where they put on emotions like masks and hope today maybe they'll feel what they show on their faces."

Ryuunosuke's heart caught in her throat from the emotion that kicked through her body.

When he saw the look on her face,'Jaune' blew out a sigh and laughed in a sad manner. "Here I am, supposed to be treating you like a princess and instead I'm whining like a child." He clapped his hands. "So let's have some juice and try to talk about something happier."

"Considering my childhood, that might be hard." Ryuunosuke joked, deciding to table that line of conversation. "But I did finally learn about my mother which is good."

"That's great!" 'Jaune' said, pouring more sparkling grape juice. "What's she like?"

"I don't know, I haven't met her yet," Ryuunosuke revealed. "She lives in Canada, and is a voice actor. Her name is Masako, though…"

'Jaune' gave pause as something appeared to click in his head. "Wait… _Masako?_ You mean Masako Fontaine is your mother?" He closed his eyes. "Huh, I guess I should've seen the resemblance sooner."

Ryuunosuke narrowed hers. "You know my mother too?"

"I don't know her personally, but she dubs a lot of anime in the west," 'Jaune' replied, "She's also super pretty… so a lot of guys my age are big fans." He stroked his chin. "Yeah, you definitely take after her. A spitting image, but cuter with the short hair."

And then Ryuunosuke was blushing brightly, almost unable to bear the praise of being compared to someone as beautiful as her mother. "A-ah geez…"

Seeing her smiling like a goofball with her blush, 'Jaune' chalked that up as a huge win and quickly raised his glass. "A toast then, to being closer to your Mom, being pretty as you are, and to hopefully a nice night going forward."

"Yeah." Ryuunosuke said after she picked up her juice and raised in salute to his toast.

The good times weren't about to last sadly.

"I finally found you, my blond one!"

Ryuunosuke's blood ran noticeably colder, then became extraordinarily hot with anger.

Oh no, not _her._

 **|Kurama the Painful|**

It went without saying that the moment she set foot inside of Arcadia, Kurama had no intention of taking up whatever lowly wretch that had been offered to her at a discount. In fact, the moment she was inside with him, she warded him off with a gust of wind and made a line straight towards the nearest blond haired young man she saw.

Unfortunately, there were like three others on the floor tonight so she mistakenly advanced upon quite few before she found 'him'. To her greater shock, 'he' was sitting directly next to ' _her'_ , Ryuunosuke Fujinami. The last time that Kurama came to this planet, she had sought him out after being told of his prowess by her servants. Yet, as it turned out, the young man had been a masquerade, a woman all along!

"You!" Kurama snapped at Ryuunosuke, who immediately shared the ill-sentiment.

"Yeah, me," she said. "Do you mind? I'm kind of in the middle of a date."

"Your 'date' is my future mate!" Kurama said sternly to her. "Don't you have women to deceive, at any rate?"

Ryuunosuke didn't care for that. "Excuse you? I wasn't deceiving anyone! It ain't my fault you're too feather-brained to listen when I said I wasn't a guy!"

Kurama bristled.

'Jaune' stood up. "Hey, you do realize there are rules about going after another client's host, right? You can and will get thrown out of here."

Kurama huffed. "I did not come here to be entertained, I have come for a man to sire my children."

She pointed her giant leaf at 'Jaune'. "Come, be with me and we will continue my bloodline."

Ryuunosuke got up between them then, the fan now pointed at her. "Oi, Kurama, why don't you go to a Sperm Bank like all the other old hags who can't get a decent man?"

There was a needle scratch that bridged the cacophony of a busy host club, and the dead silence of a building that just heard the most fightingest words ever shared between two women. Every eye in the club was on Ryuunosuke, 'Jaune', and Kurama. The owners of those eyes were either agape or aghast–especially a good number of the alien women in the building who recognized the Princess of the Tengu race staring down a human, who defiantly returned the glare.

Up in the VIP section of the club, Sashenka and Nick's conversation came to an end with the music and the sound outside, and both looked down onto the the floor below to see the tense confrontation.

"Ah… the Crow Princess has come to shit up my pretty club again," Sashenka lamented.

"Again?" Nick repeated.

"She's been here before, and made poor Jaune's life a living hell before I had her driven off by Koro-kun and banned for a month." Sashenka looked at a smartwatch on her wrist. "It's been exactly a month in fact."

She reached up to touch the screen on her phone. "I'd better call him from the front door."

Nick held up his hand. "Hang on there, Sasha. This is gonna be adorable."

"Hm?" Sashenka hummed. Nick was wearing a grin as he watched Ryuunosuke step up to Kurama. "Ah, I see."

"Girly-Man," Kurama began in a deadly level tone, "Did you just call me a-"

"Yep," Ryuunosuke replied. "And in case you're not payin' attention? I'm 100% woman."

She gestured down at herself, in her more feminine clothes, and then grabbed at her noticeably voluptuous chest–free and secured behind a proper sports bra after years of resisting the clumsy bindings of a desperate father. "And more woman where it counts than you!"

'Jaune' tried to play it cool and look away, uttering a soft "Daaang" under his breath as Kurama's face turned red with anger.

"You…!" Kurama quickly raised her leaf and swung it like she meant to slice through Ryuunosuke with it. "I will not tolerate that from you!"

As the leaf swung down towards her and she remembered what it was capable of, Ryuunosuke came to the conclusion that she may have made an error in picking a fight with Kurama.

The leaf didn't connect, but the blast of wind that leaped off it did, buffeting Ryuunosuke before she was thrown off her feet and over several tables, crashing into the last one and knocking it over as guests and hosts fled to avoid the crossfire.

"Ryuunosuke!" 'Jaune' called out.

"Shit son of a bitch whore," Sashenka hissed before she hit the alarm button on her watch. "You should've warned me that there was history involved-"

As she got up, Nick was already gone.

The leaf held out, Kurama sneered haughtily in satisfaction. After the embarrassment she endured dealing with that perverted deceiver, laying her out flat was overdue.

"Now then." Kurama grabbed 'Jaune's' arm. "Come with me, my darling… we must be away from here."

'Jaune' resisted such a pull. "I'm not going anywhere with a nutbar like you!" Wrenching her arm back and forth, he freed himself and stepped back. "You are twisted, lady!"

Kurama was offended. "Are you denying me?!"

Her two tiny Tengu flew up beside her. One cried out, "Please don't do this!"

"Do not be rash, and reconsider!" The second cried.

'Jaune' was left incredulous. "You want _me_ to calm down?!"

"Well yes, a beautiful woman barely clad in skintight clothes wants you to father her children and you're being entirely unreasonable about it," the first and Eldest Tengu said.

There were a few murmurs of agreement among both hosts and customers alike.

"Well what if I seriously don't want to?" 'Jaune' retorted.

The two Tengu began to converse among themselves and their Princess, before the first of the two turned back and answered.

"Well then, obviously you're gay," the Tengu replied.

There were a few more murmurs of agreement amongst both hosts and customers alike.

'Jaune' gave the three aliens a flat look. "Seriously? 'Do it or you're gay?' _That's_ your argument?"

"Girl, I know you like to think your shit don't stink," a voice called out to the side, and all involved looked over to see the bouncer from the front door walking towards the confrontation, rolling his shoulders in clear preparation of hauling off and hauling a bitch out.

"Ah, Koro-san," 'Jaune' said in relief.

"But uh… them roses smell like poo from where I'm leanin'," the bouncer addressed as Koro finished.

"Ah, the guard!" The second Tengu cried with a fright.

"He's gonna throw us out again!" The first warned Kurama.

Kurama scowled at the bouncer, who cracked his knuckles and looked down on her sternly. "Do not make me enjoy this, and leave the establishment _quietly."_

"Not this time, I am not leaving without the man I have chosen!" Kurama snapped back as she readied her leaf.

Koro shrugged his shoulders. "Well, okay."

There was an audible rumble, as the large black bouncer leaped from where he stood and barreled towards Kurama.

With a haughty smirk, the Tengu Princess waved her leaf powerfully, creating a wall of wind that stopped Koro and pushed him backward.

Setting his feet on the ground, Koro struggled against the wind, before he drew his arm back and swung down, the force of his chop parting the wind and leaving Kurama completely exposed. In fact, the force of his blow pushed _her_ back, shocking her where she stood.

"W-what?!" She yelped as the Bouncer lunged forward to grab her… only to grasp air as something snatched Kurama out of the way.

"Eh?" Koro asked, before he looked to his left and found Kurama lying on the ground, embraced tightly by Ataru. "Oh what the fresh hell?"

"Kurama! I've come to save you!" Ataru declared as the Tengu Princess went from surprised that she'd been rescued to horrified and disgusted that this was her savior.

For his trouble, he was launched straight into the ceiling by Kurama, and then promptly zapped by Lum, who was hot on his heels. "Don't touch me, Moroboshi!"

"Darling! What is wrong with you?!" Lum shrieked at him.

Kurama looked up and then used a burst of wind to launch herself out of the way of Koro's grasping palm, which cracked the floor underneath on impact with it.

"That's coming out of my paycheck," Koro lamented, before he stood and turned towards Kurama, who was already winding up for the swing. "… Good thing I got insurance."

The wind blast that hit him knocked him clean across the restaurant, causing more hosts and guests to scatter from the chaos, only to add to it.

 **|Run Through This Game|**

Her eyes cracking open, Ryuunosuke groaned and whimpered. Something had gone wrong back there, very wrong. Why was she lying under a shifting pile of tables and chairs, aching all over? Since when could Kurama hit so hard? Why hadn't she been able to block that?

"So," Nick said, as he shifted and removed another chair from the pile in order to free her. "Let's review."

"Ah, Nick…?" Ryuunosuke asked.

"Where I'm from, the Burma-Thailand Border, there are a few sayings of my people for surviving in the world we live in. The first one, is fairly obvious in meaning: 'If you go into the jungle, then you will meet the tiger.'" Nick removed another chair and tossed it aside.

Ryuunosuke shifted the last weight off her, and sat up onto her knees. She then looked back to see that all hell had broken loose. The bouncer was trying to fight Kurama, but she was staying out of his reach easily and launching him back. It did not help that Ataru was actively interfering in the fight, either by tripping up Koro or putting himself between him and Kurama.

Such things didn't go well for him, but even after being punched and kicked into the walls and ceiling, the little bugger seemed to get right back up!

Wait, Ataru? "What the heck is he doing here…?"

"Doing what you had expected him to do before," Nick said.

Ryuunosuke blinked, and looked back up at Nick. "What?"

"That brings me to the second saying about tigers from my homeland," Nick said. "It's another obvious one, and fairly universal too in meaning: 'You do not have to be faster than the tiger, just faster than the person with you.'"

Nick looked back over. "You girls are not at all adept at outrunning the tigers that roam this jungle when you go out to meet them. You're just faster than the likes of Ataru, or Mendou, or any of those other stupidly durable boys you liaise with."

He chuckled. "When you had to face Kurama by yourself just now, and had no meat shield to back you up, this happened to you. Funny how that is."

Ryuunosuke looked back at the fight, and then down at the ground. "What was I supposed to do, then?"

"I don't know, actually fight her? A pampered girl like that will probably go down after one solid hit. That's why I brought you here; you're supposed to be a god damned bouncer, and while Kurama has shown you are quite adept at bouncing–you have yet to do it in the capacity asked of you."

Ryuunosuke looked down at her knees, and sighed. Nick could sense a tad bit of doubt there, and it was like blood to a shark.

"Oh dear, don't tell me that you don't want to fight her. What's wrong?" He asked.

"Even when she and her goons were comin' after me, tryin' to turn me into a man… I didn't want to fight her. I don't like the idea… the idea of hittin' girls," she admitted.

Nick chuckled at that. "Oi, Ryuu-chan."

He placed a hand on her head, and when she looked back up at him he smiled down at her. "Don't forget, you're a girl too, and nobody cares if girls hit girls. So take that ounce of misguided chivalry your father gave you, and shove it way up your butt."

Ryuunosuke recoiled, feeling a tad insulted by that, as Nick rose back up.

"The path of a strong warrior is already difficult," he said as he watched the fight. "But if you expect someone to take the hits for you, or cling to old fears like hitting girls, then you'll just lose your way."

Kurama's wind battered Koro, who raised his arms to block it. Ataru took the opportunity to lift up a chair into the stream of wind, the projectile hitting and knocking him off his feet.

"I won't let you do that. Don't lose your way on this path, sweetheart, don't be afraid to fight anyone who challenges you…"

As Koro got up, Kurama laughed and propelled a table at him, the bouncer smashing it with a mighty punch only to be struck by more flung furniture tossed into the jets of wind by Ataru, who was cheering Kurama on between avoiding Lum's zaps.

"That is the way you become stronger."

As Koro hit the wall a final time and slid down to the floor unconscious, Nick folded his arms and looked down upon his student. "Your coworker has just finally lost out; you're the only one who can do anything now, so what's it going to be?"

Ryuunosuke clenched her hands into fists and took a deep breath. She then looked back towards Kurama. Her resolve awakening, she slowly stood up and answered him.

"I'm going to meet the tiger."

Panting, Kurama lowered her leaf and then used a bit of wind to cool herself off and regain her composure. Despite that human's incredible strength she'd been able to overcome him. Admittedly, she had help.

"Kurama-chan!" Ataru then cried as he glomped onto her. "We did it, baby!"

Ataru then went into a wall. No, Kurama would not admit that she had help. Not from him.

She turned back towards 'Jaune' who surprisingly hadn't run away using the distraction Koro provided. Instead, he had assumed a fighting stance.

Her Tengu were at her side again, with the first calling out. "We're pleading with you, don't make Kurama-sama fight anymore!"

"It's not worth all of this, please," the second added.

Kurama banished them both with a wave of her leaf. "That savage I can understand. But you're really going to fight me, too?"

"In the civilized world it's a big deal if you even think about hitting a woman," 'Jaune' said icily. "But in this town, civility is out the window–there's really only two rules to getting by here. The first one is survive, nothing is forbidden, everything is permitted."

That was an odd sentiment for a human to have, Kurama thought. "And the second rule?"

Jaune smirked. "Always confirm the kill."

The kill? Kurama realized just quickly enough to turn back towards Ryuunosuke, but not enough to defend herself.

Having completed her flight, Ryuunosuke swung a flying spin kick into her chest. Snatched off her feet, Kurama was tossed back towards the double doors of Arcadia and hit them with enough force to wrench them off their hinges and snap the steel bar that separated them like a twig.

Ryuunosuke landed, and after struggling to catch her breath, pointed at the destroyed doors. "You… you are banned from Arcadia, for life."

She had hit Kurama harder than she had ever hit anyone. Her leg actually stung from it, but it was really nothing compared to the unimaginable ache that was coming from her shoulder. With a wince of pain, she brought her hand to her shoulder and hobbled outside, to where she found Kurama nicely embedded into the side of a parked car.

The Tengu Princess was still conscious, but it appeared that she was in a state of shock.

"What?" Ryuunosuke asked her. "You didn't think I'd hit you, did you? Well I owed you for that one, you hear me? And a whole bunch more!"

Kurama's eyes were wide, her irises trembling in place as her body shook with a growing fury. This girl… this _mockery_ of a woman who dared to dress as a man to earn her affections…!

"Ryuunosuke!" Lum called as she flew out and beheld the scene. "O-oh no!"

She flew up beside her. "Are you okay? You're hurt!"

"I'm fine," Ryuunosuke lied. It actually hurt like six different kinds of motherlover. "You might want to get back."

Ataru managed to spill out next. "Ryuunosuke, what the hell is wrong with you?! There was no need for that!"

"She smashed the club, threatened a host, and assaulted two bouncers!" Ryuunosuke snapped back at him. "And you helped!"

Ataru coughed and cleared his throat. "Well, this place is demeaning to women so it's fair."

"It's only demeaning if you're not doing it," Ryuunosuke growled.

"Hey I actually care about how women feel, thanks!" He said even as Lum floated well within shocking distance. "I would argue further but you broke a car in half by kicking someone into it, so I'm going to be a good samaritan and help that person. Over there. A safe distance from you."

As Ataru jogged across the street to render aid to Kurama, however, he noticed that he suddenly wasn't making very much forward progress. In fact, he was making upward progress instead, caught on a updraft. "Uh…?"

It was then that he noticed that he was floating, and that other stuff was floating as well. Cars, a manhole cover in the street, Kurama whose eyes were now glowing in a white aura that also surrounded her. Oh, none of that equated a good thing.

"You… you…!" Kurama snarled, the air trembling with her every word. "You humans… you're all worthless, perverted, violent… _TRASH…!"_

 **|Clipped|**

"Oh no, Darling!" Lum cried out, not willing to get nearer to the glow emanating from Kurama. Ryuunosuke was of the same opinion, as street signs, lamps, and even a tree or two on the Princess's side of the street began to uproot themselves from the ground violently.

"Ah… Lum…! LUM!" Ataru called as he tried to move in vain.

Lum brought her hands over mouth. She'd never seen Kurama so angry… it was as if some kind of trigger had been flipped! "Oh no…"

Behind her, the elder of the mini Tengu squawked in fear. "Oh no! You've gone and done it! Kurama-sama… she's truly angry!"

Ataru looked down at the Tengu. "Wait, _now_ she's mad?!"

"As if that was not obvious?!" Ryuunosuke asked as before their eyes, a pair of broad black wings extended from Kurama's back and flapped powerfully, causing the air to tremble again.

"She's gonna go on a rampage," the younger mini Tengu whimpered. "There's nothing we can do to stop her if she does! The winds bend to her will, she'll destroy this whole city!"

"The city?!" Ryuunosuke and Ataru shouted together.

The Elder Tengu nodded. "The humanoid tengu of our race were all very powerful, just like the Oni! But their tempers were worse than the Oni!"

"And she's of the Royal Line! So her power is even greater!" The younger Tengu cried.

"H-hey! Kurama-chan? How about calming down and not destroying the city? We should get ice cream or something! My treat!" Ataru fearfully suggested with a big, scared smile.

He then felt all of Kurama's focus on him, and suddenly realized that calling her attention to him was the worst idea. Ataru was certainly right, for he was lifted up higher, along with two of the levitating cars. As he looked back and forth between them, he realized that they were in a very good position to crush him between them if Kurama so willed it.

And she so did.

"Darling!" A horrified Lum cried out as the two levitating cars accelerated towards Ataru, to crush him flat.

Instead of hitting him, however, both cars were struck by powerful gusts of wind, and went flying away from him, shorn into numerous finely cut pieces, as if carved up by a blade. Kurama froze where she hovered, as the howling wind died down and a stillness fell. Only two sounds dominated the street, the sound of Nick's footsteps as he left the club, and the scraping of steel against wood.

Behind Kurama, Sashenka stood with her cane held in front of her in her right hand, the point rested on the ground. In her left hand, she slid a long, barely curved blade back into the cane, its sheath.

"Young lady," Sashenka said without looking back at Kurama, "You have done a tremendous amount of damage to my place of business, frightened many of my employees and customers, and injured two of them. There is no court in the known galaxy that can hold you accountable for what you have done. In effect, you can walk away from here now, and not have to pay a cent."

"What?" Ryuunosuke asked, disbelieving at a lot of things she was seeing.

"It's true," Nick said as he joined her side.

"However, I am old woman in the prime of my retirement. I have lived a long life and achieved a great many things. One of my last achievements, I am certain, will be killing the Princess of an entire alien race–if she does not take responsibility for her reckless actions."

She locked the sword into place, and Kurama fell to the ground onto her knees in a limp, trembling heap, her body covered in narrow thin lines where Sashenka's blade cut just enough for her to feel it.

"I imagine you will be contacting your people about my compensation soon," Sashenka said as she walked around her, and past the various levitating objects now gently returning to the ground around them. "I eagerly await their correspondence."

She walked across the street and nodded to Ryuunosuke, who was now staring up at her in awe, her own body trembling more from it than the pain.

"That was quite the kick, little one," Sashenka complimented her. "You earned your pay for tonight. Go home and get rest, we will clean up here."

She looked over to Nick. "I look forward to see what you make her into. She's going to be every bit as interesting as Katie."

It was long after Sashenka crossed the threshold, that Ryuunosuke finally found her words again. "What did she do…?"

"Something you'll be able to do, one day," Nick offered. "Though, you're definitely not the kendo type, I'll have to teach you something different."

Ataru, one of the things that had been levitated down, crawled over towards Kurama. Kurama's Tengu had flittered over to her as well, and were already treating her injuries.

"Kurama-chan," Ataru said cautiously to her. "Kurama-chan, are you okay? Did she hurt you?"

Kurama didn't respond, she just kept staring after Sashenka.

"Ah, she's in shock!" Ataru said, before he crept closer to her and embraced her tightly. "Don't worry, you're safe here-!"

And then Ataru was flying on a spiraling tornado, up and over a few rooftops. Kurama's servants, hapless to the end, were caught up with the storm.

"This is the man you love," Nick said to Lum, who just watched him tear across the sky with a scowl.

"You'd better go get him," Ryuunosuke suggested, though it was more that she just wanted Lum to go away. She had something to ask Nick.

Lum sighed and flew off, giving Ryuunosuke and Nick both a parting look before she raced after her darling.

When they were alone, Ryuunosuke asked her teacher. "Is it really true? She can just do whatever, and there's no consequence?"

"Not a one," Nick said as he glanced back into Arcadia.

Ryuunosuke looked back as well, and saw that 'Jaune' and a few other hosts were helping up Koro, who was giving Sashenka an apologetic smile as she spoke to him. The other hosts were picking up the pieces, all the guests had fled.

"Earth has no real authority or power over the aliens, it's up to their homeworlds to police themselves, and let's be realistic, do you think the Tengu are going to punish her? Do you think Invader is going to restrain his daughter for her hijinks? They're princesses doing as they please on this playground of a backwater planet, no one's going to stop them from doing anything short of blowing up the whole damn thing."

'Jaune' looked up, and met eyes with Ryuunosuke. He gave her a sad smile before he joined the other hosts in carrying the bouncer off.

Ryuunosuke looked down. She didn't realize that it was so bad. "So… what can we do?"

"A hundred-sixty years ago, your ancestors wondered the same thing, didn't they?" Nick asked as he began to walk over towards Kurama, who was still sitting there, listless again after banishing her servants and Ataru. Ryuunosuke began to hobble after him.

"Their answer saved their country from becoming another serving of colonial pie for the powers that be they couldn't bear to resist, and turned them into one of those powers in their own right."

Ryuunosuke's hobbling slowed down, before she uttered the phrase. "S-Sonno… Joi…?"

Nick nodded. "Good girl, you pay attention in your classes."

He then turned back towards Kurama's direction.

"We humans are not without our pride, Princess. When you step on us, we feel it. When you malign us, we take it to heart. When you humiliate us, we vow revenge."

Kurama was very quiet, as she stared up at him. Then she spoke. "Is that what you want now?"

Nick shook his head. "Respect, actually. You're here on our world, disrupting our short and meager lives while doing as you please. The very least you can do is show some courtesy to your hosts in the future."

He knelt down to Kurama's level, not looking at her face. "That's all a lot of us ask for from you people visiting our world."

He lifted his head and met gazes with her, and was smiling serenely. Ryuunosuke, however, could feel it plain as day–he was generating a massive murderous intent, a starving wolf staring down an injured crow.

Kurama could feel it too, given her immediate–if feeble–withdrawal from him, her body trembling in a new terror.

"But the rest of us are perfectly fine with killing you where you stand, even if it means that every human life on the planet dies in retaliation. We despise your kind that much." His tone was still soft, but now dripping with the hatred he spoke of.

Then like that the malice was gone, and Nick's smile lost its menacing quality for serenity once more. "You're just a girl looking for a decent man; that's nothing worth becoming hated or dying for. So pick yourself up and rethink your approach, maybe study human customs, understand how to please people, stop trying to poach high school boys because 99% aren't decent in the least."

"It's true," Ryuunosuke said, "Every high school guy I've met so far has been a dumb pervert who wouldn't know what to do with a woman even if he was one."

She gestured over to Nick. "Hell, this jerk is a murderous sadistic assclown, but he's a grown man who knows how to appreciate women."

Kurama stopped and stared at Nick with that, blinking twice.

"So, good luck with your life Princess, and do remember to pay back Sasha-chan for those damages. She was very considerate in not turning you into yakitori." Nick then turned and began to walk away. "Well, we're done here. Let's go home."

"Y-yes," Ryuunosuke said with a quick nod. She managed to hobble a few paces to catch up with him, when she stopped and looked back.

Kurama was standing there, stopping in mid-step. She was following them.

"What are you…?" Ryuunosuke asked before Nick answered for her.

"You know what she wants," he said coolly.

Ryuunosuke stared at Kurama, before her eyes grew wide. She then turned and looked up at Nick with a sour look. "You're not seriously going to…?"

Nick let out a laugh and patted Ryuunosuke on her good shoulder. "Of course not, of course not… at least not without Nodoka-chan's permission."

Ryuunosuke made a face. "There's no way she'll go for it."

"I thought she'd never go for marrying me when I just showed up at her front door with the marriage documents I stole from her husband, but here we are," Nick casually replied.

Ryuunosuke needed a second to process that, before she recoiled."Wait, _what?!"_

"Well, I didn't steal them, I won them in a poker game!" Nick corrected.

"You… _what?!"_ Ryuunosuke cried out again, just unable to believe this.

Nick just laughed, as he led Ryuunosuke and Kurama back into Tomobiki.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Urusei Yatsura is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and AnimEigo. Support the official release, or don't… because _holy shit._

 **Sensei  
** **A Urusei Yatsura Story  
** **Chapter 4/?**

 **|The Asura|**

For all of her life, Sakura was a woman who had been plagued by demons. It wasn't a metaphor for family dysfunction or substance abuse, she was literally– and thoroughly–possessed by evil spirits who saw the great power she would grow into and tried to nip it in the bud. Into her adulthood she was sickly, weak, and constantly on the verge of death… until a greater evil entered her life and the demons that plagued her were drawn from her and to it like a magnet.

Ataru Moroboshi was at least good for _something._ Not that she'd ever express gratitude for him ever again; that disgusting little creep's lusting for her ate up any good will he may have earned for healing her and _quick._

On top of that, she still had to contend with the forces of evil daily. Spirits by the hundreds flocked to her, hoping to bury her again under their influence, but she won this struggle against them with ease. Their one moment of weakness ensured they'd never hold her again, and she'd come to enjoy crushing the demons under her spiritual weight.

But the day Nicholas Fontaine Sherman showed up at their school, the demons stopped approaching her at all. They were still around, she could see them easily, most circling the school but not approaching. Some however stayed to the shadows, steering clear of her or hiding upon sight. Something had changed their tact, they wished to approach her on a one-on-one basis, but the fear of immediate banishment made them hesitant.

"Sakura-sensei~!"

 _If only Ataru would be so timid_ , she thought as his arms came around her waist from behind and her vision turned red.

"I have a fev-URK!" Into the wall he went, thrown like a missile by the mighty Miko.

"Do not put your hands on me if you need medical assistance!" Sakura snapped at him.

Ataru slid to the floor and sat up. "I had a whole thing, Sakura-sensei! I had a fever, and the cure was your lov-EARK"

She kicked him in the face, slamming the back of his head into the wall and forming a spider's web of cracks around the impact point.

"Please tell me there is a reason you're bothering me beyond that I am the only woman in the hallway at the moment?" She asked him, making sure her foot was across his eyes so he wouldn't try to gape up her skirt in this position–not that it mattered, she'd long taken to wearing unflattering shorts under her beautiful skirts like the newly (and rightly) feminized Ryuunosuke.

"I actually wanted to talk to you about two things," Ataru revealed. "First, the new teacher, I think we gotta discuss him."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "And the second thing?"

"Well, I was hoping we could discuss it over din-NERGH!"

His head went deeper into the wall. Sakura lowered her foot. "We can discuss plenty here in the hallway, just fine."

Ataru dropped face first onto the floor, and then weakly pushed himself up to raise his head. "That guy, Sherman… he's a bad dude."

"I've yet to see proof of that, honestly," Sakura said simply. "He has helped Ryuunosuke, dealt with her abominable Father, and you hate him. So what is there about him that's so 'bad'?"

Ataru was now sitting on the floor, his arms crossed. "Believe me, I like the new Ryuu-chan as much as everyone else, but I think he's a bad influence on her! There's something just… creepy about him, you know? Plus, he doesn't seem to have any qualms about hitting or hurting women!"

"Does he now?" Sakura asked, fairly certain that Ataru was simply making things up to rile her.

"He threw Shinobu into a dumpster!" Ataru replied.

"She doesn't appear to have issue with him," Sakura countered.

Ataru balked slightly. Damn that jerk of a teacher, he got Shinobu on his side after the whole tiff with Ryuu-chan's Dad. "It doesn't change that he's a woman-beater and a creep!"

Sakura snorted. "Such a thing isn't so bad compared to your antics."

"Are you saying you condone violence against women?!" Ataru demanded as he shot to his feet.

Sakura put him face first back into the floor with a haymaker. "I condone no such thing!"

She turned away from him. "It's just that hearing these accusations from a true enemy of women makes them entirely baseless. What I gather of this man Sherman is that he is doing what no one has been capable of–putting you in your place and making you stay there; and you're already beginning to feel the pressure."

Ataru was about to declare that he was no enemy of women, but reasoned quickly that it'd just get him slapped around again. "You don't want to help me, then fine! But don't come crawling to me when he turns Ryuunosuke into some creepy super powered monster that even you can't stop!"

Sakura turned her nose up to Ataru, and began to walk away. "Maybe instead of fearing and rebelling against the shift in paradigm, Moroboshi, you should reflect upon your sinful ways and find peace through repentance."

"NEVER!" Ataru defiantly shouted at her back.

Sakura huffed. Given the choice between making life easier for himself and doing away with his vile compulsions, he would much rather faff about until he finds a place where he can be wicked as he wants. How did the mind of such a loathsome monster work?

The comparisons to the demons she battled daily came forth in her mind. Moroboshi was one of those single-minded spirits of evil given flesh, and the teacher's arrival coincided with his agitation as well. Could it be that his presence was driving the demons away?

Odd… she didn't feel a spiritual presence, benevolent or ominous.

Before she could even resolve to approach the apparent monster that the monster feared, she came upon her office to find the new English teacher already standing there, with the properly attired Ryuunosuke at his side. Upon seeing her, Nick's eyes lit and a friendly smile spread across his lips as he waved to her.

"Ah, I _finally_ get to meet the extremely popular Nurse Sakura," Nick said.

"Hello, Sakura-sensei," Ryuunosuke said with a polite bow.

"Hello," Sakura said almost dismissively, in order to hide her thoughts as they raced. What was this charisma, dark and deep, flowing just beneath the surface to drag the unsuspecting under. It was like a gravitational pull.

Sakura stood firm against it, spiritually gripping the ground and holding her place without discomfort. "It is nice to see that someone responsible has taken Fujinami-san under their care. So thank you for that."

"Yeah, about that? What do you know about joint reduction?" Nick asked.

Sakura's expression went flat. "I beg your pardon?"

Nick gestured to Ryuunosuke, whom Sakura noticed was now holding a limp right arm in her left. "Well, I was training her last night, and pop. Out went her shoulder. I'd do it myself, but she's insisted that the nurse do it."

Ryuunosuke shot a glare up at him. "You just seem too eager to do it!"

Nick shrugged his shoulders. "I was excited that I was going to get to teach you some basic first aid."

"A likely story," Ryuunosuke said before she looked to Sakura. "Well, can you help me?"

Sakura nodded. "Well yes, of course."

"Be sure to walk her through the process, being able to restore use of a limb is a useful skill in battle," Nick called as Sakura led Ryuunosuke into the nurse's office.

Sakura looked back at Nick, and nodded. "I'll do my best."

As the door closed, Nick chuckled in amusement some, before he definitely sensed a murderous gaze aimed at him. He glanced over and definitely caught sight of Ataru retreating behind a corner down the hallway Sakura had come from. When he looked the other way, he saw a number of other male students similarly take cover around the corner he and Ryuunosuke had come down the hall from.

" _Honestly these perverted boys, I can't wait for Mercedes to get here,"_ he thought to himself before looking up at the door to the Nurse's office. " _Just need to make some room for her…"_

In the office, Ryuunosuke was woozy after having her shoulder rammed back into place. She was rather surprised that she could move it again after such a short time. Sakura was massaging formerly dislocated limb, making sure the reduction had caused no further damage. There seemed to be none, which relieved the school nurse.

"I highly recommend seeing a proper physician to determine that the limb is correctly aligned, and to keep your arm in a sling until then," Sakura said to Ryuunosuke as the tomboy rubbed the extremely tender shoulder.

"Yeah, thanks Sakura-sensei," Ryuunosuke said.

As Sakura went to get a sling, she had to ask. "What kind of training are you doing?"

"Well, last night we went out to a Host Club," Ryuunosuke said.

"A host club?" Sakura had been to one, once. It was actually rather nice, but she got engaged shortly after to her fiancé and felt no real reason to go back. It was a nice place, run by a kind old Russian woman.

"Yeah, he believes that real life situations are the best training," Ryuunosuke replied.

"And your shoulder was dislocated during that."

"Life is a harsh teacher," Ryuunosuke put it succinctly. "On the bright side, I learned a lot."

Sakura was skeptical. "What did you learn?"

"That I have a little ways to go," Ryuunosuke replied, the image of Sashenka defeating Kurama still fresh in her head.

Ah, so that dislocated arm was a dash of humility, Sakura realized.

"I want to become stronger, though. Sherman-sensei doesn't want me to be like my old man and neither do I."

That was a point in the strange man's favor, though half was deducted for injury to his charge. Still, Sakura had to comment on the sudden disappearance of the elder Fujinami. "Are you fine with what happened to him?"

"He ruined my life for his own selfishness," Ryuunosuke said with a slight edge in her voice. "Whatever happened to that sack of crap I don't really care."

She did sigh, however. "It still feels weird, I'm finally dressing like a girl, there's someone in my life who cares about me… but I can't shake that something's weird about it."

Sakura came over with the sling, swiftly putting the injured arm into it before she let herself consider her patient's words. Indeed, an ill wind was blowing in, but it didn't seem like it was an entirely bad thing. However, it certainly wasn't an entirely good thing. What was the price to be paid for such beneficial things? And who would be paying it?

"Sakura-sensei?" Ryuunosuke stirred the contemplative nurse from her thoughts.

"Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about what you said." Sakura answered with a resigned shake of her head. "I can't tell if what is happening is good or bad either."

Sakura then looked at the arm. "How is it feeling?"

"I still feel a little woozy from it," Ryuunosuke admitted.

Sakura understood. "Well, lay down for a little bit, and if you're not feeling better you can go straight home. Just make sure you have a doctor look at your arm."

She got up, as Ryuunosuke turned and gingerly laid herself down on her back atop the bed. Sakura then turned towards the door. "I'm going to the supply closet to get some painkillers, it shouldn't take me too long.

"Of course, thanks again." Ryuunosuke said before Sakura left the nurse's room.

As Sakura walked the short trip down the hall, Ryuunosuke looked towards the pretty nurse's desk. Sitting there was Sakura's smartphone, and Ryuunosuke pulled a bit of a grimace.

In the teacher's office some forty minutes later, Ryuunosuke marched up to Nick as he sat in front of his computer, watching an American animation about magical hunter girls. Sparing a moment to look at his student, he resumed watching the show with a vested interest.

"This mocap is fantastic," he murmured. "It's a shame everything else is awful."

"Ahem?" Ryuunosuke announced.

"I guess the character designs are cute too, I can see why Katie's such a slut for it," he then observed.

"Hey!" Ryuunosuke snapped at him, before she set a micro-SD card down in front of him. "I got it."

Nick looked down at the SD card, and then at her. "So you did, I'm impressed that you were able to overcome yourself and do it."

Ryuunosuke bore down on him with a frown. "It wasn't easy. Sakura-sensei is one of the few people who are honestly nice to me, and you're having me steal from her."

"Well it had to be you, because she trusts you." At Ryuunosuke's even more severe look he brushed it off. "Look, when she finds out–and she will–just tell her that I put you up to it."

"Yeah, what exactly do you need this for, anyway?" Ryuunosuke asked.

He picked up the SD Card and slipped it into a prepaid smartphone, which he then connected to his desk's computer. "The overall plan will be forthcoming, but the abstract is that I'm using this to test our wouldbe Crusaders in the harshest scenario possible."

Grabbing the computer mouse, he set out exploring the contents of the SD Card, while behind him Ryuunosuke folded her arms. "And what are ya lookin' for in Sakura's stuff to help with this?"

Nick clicked around, before he found the image gallery of the phone and smiled as he opened it for Ryuunosuke to see. "This."

Ryuunosuke leaned in to look at the folder, and when she saw the contents her mouth fell open.

 **|Tryout Try-Hards|**

The afternoon sun beat down on Miyake Shinobu and Mendou Shuutaro as they waited out in the middle of the school's athletic field; the price paid for having their thirst for the blood of Ryuunosuke's father quenched. For the former, there was the benefit of dodging Ataru and Lum, who were not at all invited or allowed to attend. For the latter, it was simply a matter of course, he had requested a service and this was merely payment. Regardless of their reasons, they were here to be evaluated for positions among the Crusaders.

They were not alone, dozens of other students had come also; most of them were boys but there were small, segregated clusters of girls present as well.

"There are so many students wanting to be Crusaders," Shinobu observed. "Especially with the boys, there are more than I expected."

She soured a bit when she recognized a lot of them… they were all the same riff-raff who hounded after Lum or routinely visited Sakura citing some kind of "illness". In short, the guys that Nick would have the Crusaders going after with a vengeance.

"It isn't surprising, we're all here to become the new elite of Tomobiki High School." Mendou said, not at all bothered by the degenerate scum. "What man doesn't want to be a hero of justice?"

Shinobu rolled her eyes. "I think it's more they just want to use their new authority to be bigger perverts."

Mendou simply chuckled. "Does Sherman-sensei strike you as accepting of any old also-ran and degenerate scum? Does Ryuunosuke?"

Shinobu shook her head. "When you put it like that, I suppose not."

"Precisely, like you and I, the students who enter the ranks of the Crusaders will be the sort capable of disciplining the student body and making it into something better."

"Making it better?" Shinobu blew out a breath. "I don't see how we can make it better if most of these students wash out. Getting this crazy school under control is gonna take an entire army."

"Not necessarily, Shinobu," Mendou replied, "Do you recall the incident at Furinkan High School?"

Shinobu craned her head to think about that, before she remembered reading about what happened in the school paper. "Kuno-san's unfortunate accident?"

Mendou nodded. "Yes, after his departure, his younger sister Kodachi enrolled in the school and began a grand reformation. The perverts, the delinquents, and the cult of fear built around her brother have been torn down and rebuilt into something arguably better."

Furinkan's longstanding reputation of depravity and perversion rivaled Tomobiki's, especially this school year. The idea that it could be smashed so thoroughly was unfathomable.

"Unbelievable!" Shinobu declared.

"Whether you want to believe it or not, she's already turned a large number of that rabble into something respectable." Mendou casually pointed out for her. "And she's managed to do it with only a handful of its best students under her belt, and the renown wealth of House Kuno."

Shinobu was struck. If such a thing could happen at Furinkan High School… then here at Tomobiki…

Mendou swept a dramatic gesture. "We who will lead the Crusaders will not be mere disciplinarians. We will be the foundation for a new and brighter Tomobiki. One that needn't be burdened by the lechery of the likes of Moroboshi and his ilk."

He looked towards the crowd. "Sherman-sensei and Ryuunosuke will select their Crusaders in order to achieve this. That is certainly why they've chosen us to show what we are capable of."

On hearing that Shinobu nodded, letting out a serious-sounding hum of assertion. If Furinkan High School could turn around, then surely Tomobiki could as well!

"Good morning Mendou-san! Shinobu-san!" The suspiciously ever cheerful and carefree-sounding Ran called over as she approached the idling crowd of students. '"Is this where everyone's gathering to join the crusade?"

"Hello," Shinobu greeted warily.

Mendou looked to Ran and nodded. "That is right, Ran-san. It's good to see you join us as well."

Shinobu found this girl's arrival even more worrisome. She was as much a troublemaker as any of the aliens among them on a good day.

"Well, everyone else seems very passionate about supporting the school, what kind of student would I be if I didn't try?" Ran asked sweetly.

Mendou quickly took Ran's hands in his own. "Ran-san, your dedication moves me. With your charm and spirit, the Crusaders will be a true force of good."

Shinobu scowled, as Ran ate up Mendou's flirting praise. Why was he always like this with other girls when she was right here?

She tried to ignore the uncomfortable deja vu.

"Oh, Mendou-san you flatterer!" Ran cooed.

Shinobu rolled her eyes, which coincidentally allowed her to see the arrival of a taller, athletic looking girl wearing a dark jacket and matching sunglasses. Shinobu had to do a double-take, that someone would wear that in this heat. She'd never seen this girl at school before, but she looked almost familiar.

"This is the tryouts for the Crusaders, right?" The girl asked, catching Ran and Mendou's attention as well. "What's with all these sissy boys hanging around here? Are they trying to join too?"

The girl let out a snarl. "It's so funny I can't even laugh."

"Ah?" Ran asked. "You're trying out as well, Natsuko-chan? Oh my, li'l Ran is certain you'll fit right in!"

"My dear Natsuko," Mendo suddenly interrupted, rushing forward to try to greet the girl, who responded by turning her head away from him. Mendo then repeatedly tried to step into her new line of sight, but she kept on turning away. "It has been a long time since that unfortunate incident with the boy's volleyball team."

"Boy's volleyball team...?" Shinobu asked aloud.

"Yeah!" Natsuko sniffed. "I crushed that bunch of wimps. Stomped them."

A grin appeared on her face that unnerved Shinobu. It was strange. Up until then she'd seemed like a mildly angry yet beautiful girl. Yet that expression was so… monstrous. "Made those perverted wimps run with their tails tucked between their legs!"

"Such determination and vigor," Mendo sighed. "How thoroughly refreshing."

"You ran faster than the rest of them, you delusional idiot!"

To Shinobu's bafflement Ran began to titter adorably. "Oh, Natsuko! You joker. I do hope we can get along in the Crusaders together, teehee!"

When the strange new girl turned towards Ran, her expression slipped back into something much less intense. More friendly(?) and welcoming(?) than that utterly monstrous visage she'd glared at Mendo with.

"Hope nothing!" Natsuko firmly replied. "We will!"

She fistpumped the air. "We will both make it into the Crusaders! You and me, Ran! And you too! What's your name?"

Shinobu recoiled, when she was suddenly pointed at. "Sh-Shinobu."

"All right Sh-Shinobu-chan!" Natsuko yelled. "We can do this! We'll show those sissy boys how strong girls are! Hahaha! We'll stomp these boys into the dirt, just you wait and see!"

Shinobu used to blame all the weirdness in Tomobiki on Ataru and the aliens. Right about now she was starting to think that maybe there were some sort of curse on the school grounds beyond Ataru's enrollment. If she wasn't careful then maybe even a perfectly ordinary and nice girl like herself might start acting a bit peculiar too.

"I am so glad to see so many of you here!" Nick then proudly announced. "Welcome students, to these trials of The Crusaders, the keepers of law and order of Tomobiki High School!"

He was standing on the temporary platform usually reserved for large functions such as these, and he was not alone. At his side, giving him the _foulest_ glare, was Ryuunosuke.

Everyone was surprised to see that the strongest girl in school had her arm in a sling, going by the immediate murmurs from the students, but Shinobu was more startled by the fearsome look.

"Ryuunosuke-chan, what happened to you?" Shinobu asked herself, her voice lost to the murmurs around her.

"As Crusaders, your first and foremost duty will be keeping the peace. You will report problems, assist students and faculty alike, and help maintain a stable environment conducive to learning. This is _not_ a group specifically to place one Ataru Moroboshi in check at all times–but since he's the biggest troublemaker in the school, you will be doing a lot of your work in regards to him."

Mendou looked around and finally realized that there was no Ataru, or any sign of Lum for that matter.

Nick looked around the group of students. "Understand that as Crusaders, you will be held up to the same standards that you enforce. You won't be above the rules, and if any of you attempt to be, you will be out of the Crusaders faster than you can say police corruption."

His eyes narrowed and his smile became menacing. "Don't abuse the trust given to you by we the faculty. This ain't some get out of school work free card, nor is it an excuse to act like an ass. Otherwise, you're gonna wish I came down on you like a ton of bricks."

A few of the students gulped. Even they weren't half as nervous about this as they should have been.

"So, let's start with an easy question: What unlucky place is that troublemaker Moroboshi stinking up?"

"The cafeteria!" someone called. "I saw him heading in there with his friends and Lum."

"Awesome!" Nick clapped. "That means we can get down to business without worrying about him kicking up a fuss right away. Everyone, line up and take one of these envelopes. Do not open them, and wait for instructions. That's _important_. Get it?"

Oh, they got it. Now, as for the line itself a funny thing happened. Natsuko shot straight to the front. As did Mendo. However, he politely permitted any and all girls to go past him, but refused to allow any boy to even look like they were going to try. Only when every single girl had taken an envelope did he step forward to take one, and then the rest of the boys got to take theirs.

Gentlemanly yet rude at the same time. Nobody does that better than Mendou Shuutaro.

"Well, this is already turning out pretty great, eh Ryuu-chan?" Nick asked his student.

"Oh I can't see this going wrong in any conceivable way," Ryuunosuke replied.

Nick's eyebrows rose, before he smiled broadly. "Oh, don't be like that. It's all for the good of the school."

"It's all good for nothing," she shot back.

"And yet you haven't left," Nick pointed out.

"You're still the lesser evil," Ryuunosuke replied.

And Nick was happy to remain right there. As he looked over the group, he found that everyone had now collected a folder. There were none left in the stacks in front of him, which was good. He scanned the group again and clapped his hands together.

"Superb! You all have an envelope and you haven't opened one. Which is good, because if you did, you would be immediately disqualified from being a Crusader, with no second chances," Nick spoke. "I am deadly serious here, too. If an envelope is opened, you will lose your chance. This is an exercise to show me that you can follow some basic instructions, and protect an objective."

He then produced his own envelope and tapped the back of his hand against it, as though it were a stack of papers. "Your objective is to hold onto your envelopes for the next four hours without opening them or them being opened."

Mendou did the math. "Four hours, so until the end of the school day?"

"That is correct. You cannot leave the property with the envelopes, and you cannot destroy them yourselves. You can hide them, you can keep them on you at all times, but they are your responsibility until the end of the day," Nick explained.

Mendou found that simple enough. In fact he already had a plan to ensure his placement in the organization, along with that of Shinobu, Ran, Natsuko, and any girl who wanted to join. It'd be a simple matter of calling some of his men in to secure the folders and that would be that.

"That's it?" Shinobu asked as she looked at her envelope.

"Geez, even these sissies can do that," Natsuko said, "I have half a mind to leave if they're going to be that liberal with who gets in."

Ran then spoke up. "Excuse me, Sherman-sensei, but what's in these envelopes that's so important? Is it some kind of secret document?"

Ryuunosuke made a face of dread, that immediately alerted Shinobu that these envelopes may be hotter than they seemed. Nick however was more than excited to tell them.

"There's nothing secret about the contents–in fact I was going to tell you what's inside them anyway," Nick declared.

"Oh boy," Ryuunosuke grumbled.

"You see, inside each and every one of those envelopes, is a different picture of our beautiful School Nurse, Sakura-sensei. These photos were all taken from her cellphone, and include selfies of herself in everything from her usual daily attire, to swimsuits, to underwear, to lingerie, to absolutely nothing at all–even cosplay."

With his reveal, every student's eyes went to the envelopes they held, as what appeared to be a simple game suddenly gained a new and unreal angle. For every boy in the group, the envelopes suddenly became the strongest temptation to ever fill their lives. The promise of power within the school's social hierarchy was suddenly endangered by the opportunity–the chance–to see the hottest school faculty member who ever lived at her most intimate and vulnerable.

Even Mendou was suddenly gripping the envelope with a new and Godlike focus, sweat racing down his face and neck as he wondered what lay within. Would Sakura-sensei be in her school attire? Dressed as a miko? In lingerie? N-nude?! The mind boggled. The heart raced. The curiosity teased!

Natsuko just about dropped her folder like it had turned into a snake. "W-what the heck?! We got _what?!"_

Ran was curious, how on Earth did Sherman-sensei get ahold of that?

Shinobu, however, was horrified. In the instant Nick revealed the contents of these envelopes, she understood exactly why the rules had been given out first.

Meanwhile, in the cafeteria, something mysterious happened that would go down in the school's history as an unsolved event. According to the legend to be, resident idiot and troublemaker Ataru Moroboshi was sitting down to lunch with his fiancée Lum Invader and about to take a bite out of a ham sandwich, when he vanished in a puff of smoke. There was no warning, there was no explanation.

All anyone knew, even Moroboshi himself, was that one moment he was there, the next he was outside at the athletics field. He appeared in a puff of smoke in front of Sherman-sensei then said "Pardon me sir! I do not think I heard you, could you please repeat that last part?"

"I said: Inside each and every one of those envelopes, is a different picture of our beautiful School Nurse, Sakura-sensei. These photos were all taken from her cellphone, and include selfies of herself in everything from her usual daily attire, to swimsuits, to underwear, to lingerie, to absolutely nothing at all–even cosplay."

A brand new hush fell across the students as Ataru became very still, like a tightly wound spring. In that instant, they all realized the same thing Shinobu had.

Nick was holding up his smartphone, to film all of the students as he said two words: "Basically… _run."_

 **|The Last Riot|**

It was like someone had fired a starter's pistol. The smarter students bolted in every direction, the Athletic Field going into a full uproar as the slower students were swept up in the stampede. As the chaos unfolded, Ataru was stone still where he sat, his body practically vibrating as his eyes began to dart all over the fleeing crowd.

Each student had an envelope, which mean there had to be dozens of those glorious pictures! He wanted, no… he _needed_ all of them!

"Tsch! Wimps!" Natsuko snapped at the sight of the panic. Defiantly, she waved the envelope at Ataru, daring him to just try it. "Are you guys really that scared of Moro-?"

Then suddenly Ataru was inside her reach, his depraved eyes glued on the envelope before she could even react. In the instant that followed, Natsuko began to recoil as a single thought ran through her head. " _He's fast!"_

Before he could grab the envelope, Shinobu's right hook connected with the side of his head. In the same slow motion that held Ataru and Natsuko in place, Ataru's perversely smiling face warped and twisted as Shinobu's fist advanced, before time sped up and he was sent rocketing away from Natsuko and into a crowd of students likewise trying to flee.

"We need to run away!" Shinobu said after looking to Natsuko. "We don't have a chance out in the open like this!"

Natsuko was still stunned by the speed at which she had been attacked. "That… that was Moroboshi…?"

"When he's overcome with lust he's unstoppable!" Shinobu said, before she looked back at Nick, who was still filming the chaos. "He… he knew, that's why…!"

There were sudden explosions of red mist filling the area where Ataru had been flung, and she, Natsuko, and Ran could see shredded tan paper rising above with the mist.

"Ah, I forgot to mention," Nick then said. "Each envelope also contains a dye pack, which explodes when it is opened. It doesn't wash out easily so make sure you don't open it, okay kids? Don't worry, though, it won't damage the pictures."

Natsuko was struck with fear. "He's already opened that many?!"

"This is why we have to run!" Shinobu shouted as she took both her and Ran by the wrists and ran off in the other direction with more screaming and panicking students.

"What about Mendou-kun?!" Ran asked, looking back to see Mendou still standing stock still, sweating bullets as he stared at his envelope.

"We need to worry about ourselves, first! Ataru's more dangerous than a werewolf on a rampage!" Shinobu shouted back.

"Awwooooo!" Ataru howled, already bathed in red and holding a stack of pictures in his teeth with eyes wide and wild, unseeing his fellow man. If anything Shinobu was downplaying how outright inhuman he was at the moment. Those eyes did not see living things. They saw objects, obstacles and goals. Nothing else.

As he charged on, rampaging among the students, Nick was up on stage laughing. "Oh man, I didn't think he'd go off like _that!_ Wow!"

He looked over at Ryuunosuke, who was still giving him the stink-eye. "You're just going to be a stick in the mud over this, aren't you?"

"Until you apologize to Sakura-sensei," Ryuunosuke said.

Nick let out a sigh. "Oh, all right then. If you do so insist"

He turned and headed towards the platform's edge. "Let's tell her now."

Ryuunosuke nodded. "Good!"

As the two walked off, they completely left Mendou alone in front of the stage, still staring at the envelope. He now stood in a literal puddle of sweat.

Inside the school, unaware of the chaos that was about to descend upon them, Lum was still looking around for any sign of Ataru with two of his friends, Kousuke and Hokuto. They had never seen him simply vanish like that, leaving no trace of his presence or a trail of offended girls in his wake.

"Maa, it's not like him to just up and disappear like that," Kousuke said to Lum, who agreed entirely.

"I hope he wasn't abducted, there's no telling what kind of trouble he'll cause," she said worriedly, prompting Hokuto and Kousuke to share a look.

"She would be more worried about the kidnappers," Hokuto muttered.

"Can you blame her? What if they're women?" Kousuke whispered back.

"If they are, then they are the stupidest women alive," Hokuto answered.

The rumbling of footsteps and sounds of screams then filled the hallway. Lum floated a little bit higher, in preparation to fly down to see what was causing the racket, when the racket came to them.

"I think we found him-!" Kousuke shouted in a panic before both he and Hokuto were trampled by a stampede of screaming girls who were tossing manilla envelopes into the air behind them.

"What the…?" Lum asked as she watched the mob rumble past.

"Forget the Crusaders!" One girl said as she abandoned her envelope.

"It's not worth this!" Agreed another as she tossed her own envelope away. The arc sent it straight towards the unseen alien princess, who caught it.

Lum was surprised, the Crusaders were meeting for tryouts already? How'd she miss that? More importantly, why was everyone quitting the group already?

She got her answer when she saw a smaller group, this time of four boys, come running around the corner, each one tightly gripping envelopes and trying to gather as many as they could of the ones abandoned by the girls.

"Grab as many as you can, you assholes!" The leader of this small group said. "If we can distract Moroboshi with these, then we can at least still get away with our own!"

"You're a genius, a God damned genius!" One of the other boys said.

The leader smiled. "Survive the day! And we can still have our cake and eat-!"

At that moment he was grabbed and thrown into the wall headfirst with enough force to go part way through it. The other three boys didn't see it, they only saw him running ahead of them one instant, and then vanish in the next. As all three jogged to a halt, they slowly turned around and found Ataru standing next to their fallen leader, splattered in red, and bathed in a pink aura that radiated outward as he casually removed the folder from the boy's twitching hand.

Lum recoiled at the sight of Ataru. "D-Darling…?"

The three remaining boys stared at the leader of their group, and then at Ataru, all three going chalk white as the super pervert turned and began walking towards them slowly. Calmly, self-assuredly, he held out his hand, the other stuffing the envelope into his jacket. "You have something that belongs to me."

Screaming in terror, all three boys abandoned the envelopes they had gathered up and ran for their lives and limbs. "Forget the Crusaders! It's not worth this!"

Upon seeing the pile of abandoned envelopes, Ataru walked over and crouched down to gather them all close to him. He hugged them close, before he opened one with such speed that the dye pack didn't have a chance to explode, leaving a plain white paper that he stared at before hugging to his chest.

"This is the best one yet…!" He growled as his aura suddenly grew larger.

Like a tiger digging into a kill, Ataru hunched into the pile began tearing at the other envelopes, tossing aside the exploding dye packs before they could even explode. With every opened package, the pink light that enveloped him seemed to grow denser, and brighter, the outer edges of the light giving off a violet, smoke-like vapor.

Lum recognized this. "His aura of lust…?"

She looked at the envelope in her hand. "Then what is…?"

She went to go unlatch it, when that bright light was suddenly a lot brighter. She looked up and found Ataru leaping at her higher and faster than she'd ever seen him go before.

Fortunately for her, her lightning zaps were always much faster than Ataru ever could be. Right as his fingers even grazed the envelope, he was hit full force with a zap from Lum, smashing him into the ceiling.

"Darling! Control yourself!" Lum shouted before Ataru just looked down at her and grinned broadly through the blast of electricity.

She looked at the envelope, then at Ataru, who flipped himself over on the ceiling onto his hands and feet, and prepared to launch himself at her.

"Give… me… that… envelope… _LUM!"_ He roared before he launched straight for her, only barely missing as she dove to her left out an open window and flew straight up as fast as she could.

"What… what could make Darling go wild like this…?" Lum asked herself as she ascended past the roof of the school and found a scene of complete chaos on the school grounds below. Students were trying to find whatever hiding place they could, some were running for the gates, which had been closed and locked, while others were setting up defensive positions with sports equipment.

She then looked at the envelope in her hand, back down at the school below, then at the envelope again. All of the students attempting to protect themselves had an envelope with them as well, and obviously whatever Ataru wanted was in each of these.

With great care, she opened the envelope–and for her trouble received a splash of red dye that splattered all over her front. "Ack! What the…?"

Removing the dye pack, she pulled out the actual contents of the envelope… and stared blankly at it.

It was a picture of Sakura, wearing her nurse's coat, a red corset, stockings, and she was squatting on her bed while giving the camera she was holding in her right hand a very lewd expression.

"S-S-Sakura-sensei?!" Lum sputtered, before she realized a few more details of the picture. "She's not wearing any panties…?! A-and what's that thing she's sitting on…?"

Lum's eyes grew wider, before she looked away from the picture, her face a deep red and her body shaking. Sakura-sensei was a woman not afraid to embrace her sexuality, but Lum never imagined she was this liberal about it! And here she thought she was bold, spending all her time in her tiger stripe bikini.

"Is… is this what Darling is into?" She heard howling below, and found that Ataru had made his way outside into the front courtyard of the school. The students who had attempted to build themselves a fort out of sports equipment were almost immediately obliterated, a set of bleachers actually sailing past Lum as she watched Ataru make short work of them to get to his objectives.

Folding up the photo, she slipped it into her uniform pocket and frowned. This had to stop, before he hurt someone!

As Ataru's bestial power grew with every photo he acquired, Shinobu, Ran, and Natsuko watched with horror and disgust from the second floor window of a now abandoned classroom. Shinobu swallowed hard, as she watched a few members of the body improvement club try to hold themselves off against the beast.

"The Tomobiki Body Improvement Club is the muscle the Crusaders need! If we can't stop Moroboshi, how can we call ourselves men?!" The muscular captain of the school's bodybuilding club asked.

"OSSU!" The other well-built young men declared, before they were violently picked off one by one through Ataru's overwhelming speed, their screams barely drowned out by his howls.

"N-not even those meatheads…!" Natsuko said with a trembling voice.

"Darling, I've never seen him so determined," Ran whispered.

Shinobu crouched down, lowering herself below the level of the window sill. "This was a mistake! Sherman-sensei, that idiot… he had no idea what he was unleashing!"

Ran looked over at her. "Does it still amaze you that you used to date him?"

Natsuko's mouth fell comically wide as she stared at Shinobu with newfound respect, pity and awe. "You used to _date_ that thing?!"

Splattered almost head to toe in red now, Ataru looked up from his latest conquest at the shout, and then back towards the school. Natsuko was pinned to the floor, Shinobu and Ran covering her mouth.

"Is he looking this way?" Shinobu asked in a shaky voice.

Ran shook her head wildly. "I'm not going to check!"

Natsuko pushed them both from her, and sat up with her back against the wall, just under the window. "We gotta do something. At this rate… this is only going to get worse. We won't make it to the end of the day."

Shinobu shook her head in despair. "I don't have any ideas."

"Well, look on the bright side," she then said in an effort to cheer up the other two girls, "Well, as bad as it is, it can't get any worse at least." Ran suggested.

Natsuko and Shinobu looked at each other, then at Ran, and nodded in agreement.

 **|And then it got worse|**

Sakura usually locked up her office during her lunch break and enjoyed herself a considerable meal complete with relaxing ambient music, the blinds drawn, and the lights lowered. Frustrating and stressful as life at school was, it was this peaceful lunchtime that made it all worth it. No interruptions, no students, no Moroboshi.

"Just me and a light lunch," she said of the tray with enough sushi to feed sixty people in front of her.

"It is light, are you on a diet?" Her uncle, Cherry asked as he broke open a pair of chopsticks in preparation to dig into it as well.

Seeing her Uncle about to help himself uninvited into her temporary sanctum, Sakura grabbed him and threw him with all her might into the wall behind her. "Is there a reason you're here?!"

"A man cannot visit his niece?" Cherry asked calmly, in spite of being embedded upside down in the wall.

"A man can't show up unannounced and start eating his niece's food," Sakura snapped back. "What do you want aside from a free meal?"

"I'm hungry, so a free meal," Cherry openly admitted.

Sakura sneered and turned back to her tray. So much for peace and quiet. "You are to gluttony what Moroboshi is to lust."

She says this as she began to cram roll after roll of sushi into her mouth.

That reminded Cherry, as he began to extricate himself from the wall. "Ah yes, speaking of Moroboshi… I have sensed something strange here at the school."

"You as well?" Sakura asked with a mouth full.

Cherry managed to get his large head out of the wall, but the rest of him was still stuck well into the concrete. "Urgh… yes… the evil spirits that plague this school normally… nearly… all… have evacuated…!"

There was a thump, as Cherry's head went right back into the indent he made. Satisfied that he wasn't getting out, Sakura took a sip of soy sauce directly from the boat to help wash down the sushi she chewed upon.

"Since the new teacher arrived, I have noticed that the dark forces haunting the school have been driven off. Even Moroboshi seems cornered and more desperate around him," Sakura admitted.

"I have seen him as well," Cherry said as he once again tried to free himself. "He has… made… quite an impression… upon… Ryuunosuke!"

He failed to pull himself free and sighed in defeat. The sushi platter was already half gone anyway.

"He has," Sakura said, "But the eagerness with which she follows him bothers me. He radiates a presence that draws you in the moment you enter his territory, like it wants to devour anything that gets too close…"

She closed her eyes, and the image of the dark tendrils of his aura attempting to wrap themselves around her and draw her close filled her mind. In the same image, those same tendrils were wrapped tightly around Ryuunosuke, pulling her closer to him. "Even now I can feel it-"

Then she could feel something else, a massive reaction, a flash of pink shot through her mind and filled her with a horrific dread. In an instant she was on her feet, her sushi platter completely forgotten as she easily recognized the overwhelming, all-smothering aura.

"That… that's Moroboshi!" She exclaimed, before the presence grew even stronger. So strong, in fact, that it actually forced her back down onto one knee. "N-no… that's _not_ Moroboshi!"

Was it? She wasn't sure, but… what could have such a tremendous aura of pure and unadulterated lust? It was getting stronger, too!

"Uncle… please tell me you feel that as well!" The weight of the aura only seemed to increase, and Sakura almost completely buckled under it. Something terrible was happening, she quickly realized, and with every passing moment it was getting worse!

Cherry had somehow gotten out of the wall and was snacking on the rest of the sushi plate. "It's certainly not as bad as you think it is."

Sakura found the strength to kick her Uncle towards the door, which slid open to reveal Nick and Ryuunosuke standing there.

"Hey, Sakura-sensei!" Nick said as Cherry went by and smacked into the wall behind them. The sound of the impact joined the roar of chaos going on outside. "We need to talk real quick."

Panting heavily, Sakura attempted to regain her composure but found it increasingly difficult, especially now that her sanctum was opened and the aura was surging in. "Can it wait, I need to prepare to deal with an evil spirit."

"Funny, I was actually going to tell you about that," Nick said.

Ryuunosuke looked up at him. "You can at least pretend to be ashamed, asshole!"

Ashamed? Sakura scowled. "Wait a moment, is this your doing?"

Nick glanced back out the door after he stepped in. "I definitely got the ball rolling. I did not expect him to go completely wild like this."

Sakura was now glaring at Nick. "What did you do, Sherman-sensei? Is this Moroboshi?"

Nick nodded. "Sure is."

Ryuunosuke's frustration with his blasé treatment of the situation peaked, and she spoke up. "He had me steal your phone and printed out all the pictures you sent to your fiancé to hand them out to the other students! When Ataru found out he went berserk and he's trying to get them all!"

The air in the nurse's office became suddenly very still, and the color completely drained from the room for an instant. Ryunosuke had been glowering at Nick over what he had done, but that frustration drained away like a leaky balloon in the face of what was happening right in front of her. Then the floor began to tremble. The shadows crept out of the corners as though light itself was in a complete retreat. The room temperature dropped so rapidly that fear sweat dripping from Ryuunosuke's brow made a little shattering noise upon hitting that trembling floor.

Through all of this Sakura had remained still. Her body, her facial expression, everything. Then, at last, the nurse nodded her head and said:

"I see."

At that moment Ryunosuke realised: What she had just experienced did not actually happen. It was merely the impression of intimidation given off by Sakura's fighting spirit.

"I... see..." Sakura slowly repeated. Then she turned around, walked across to a drawer, pulled it open, extracted an army helmet and a naginata, put the former on her head and turned towards the window.

"I will need to destroy the pictures, and then Moroboshi," she calmly said.

"Honestly I thought she'd haul off on me, first," Nick said aside to Ryuunosuke.

She threw open that window, made to climb out but then stopped just a moment. She then slowly looked back at him, a white aura spreading across her body. "When I am done with them, I am coming after you, Sherman."

"There it is," Nick said with a smile.

Sakura jumped out of the window, and crashed down in front of another boy carrying an envelope. The boy, confused for a moment, then turned pale and soiled himself as he realized that Sakura knew exactly what he was holding, also she was carrying a really sharp looking blade that was pointing in his general direction.

"The envelope," she said in her deep, menacing voice, "Give it to me."

Without even an argument, the boy handed the envelope to the nurse, and crumpled where he stood from pure fear.

She began walking forward, the air shimmering around her. Leaning out the window to watch her, Nick and Ryuunosuke watched her simply slice apart the envelope of another student without so much as looking at them. Red mist sprayed in her face, Sakura licked it off, looking like a demon. Until she screwed up her face from the disgust and spat it out.

"God, if she wasn't so happily engaged, I'd bend her over the nearest horizontal surface and ram her like a Klingon that's run out of options," Nick said with a dreamy look on his face.

"Really glad I don't get that," she growled.

"Star Trek is an American institution," Nick said as he pulled himself back in the window. "When we get home we'll get you started on TOS, then Wrath of Khan, and go from there."

Ryuunosuke turned to follow him in. "What about stopping this?!"

"Please, we only have…" Nick looked at his watch. "Oh, it's just been twenty minutes? Shit."

He looked back at Ryuunosuke. "Well, let's go get a good vantage point. Watch closely and learn, young Padawan."

"Pada-wha?"

"Okay, you're going to watch Star Wars, too," Nick added.

 **|Shattered Ambition|**

Imagine that you found the Holy Grail and were told not to take a drink. You have it in your hand. There is water right there. You are thirsty. Parched, yet determined. If you can bring it with you then your lifelong ambitions will be fulfilled. On the other hand, the rewards for taking a mere sip could be wondrous too.

This was the dilemma Mendou Shutaro faced. It was not that he were some lowly pervert like that Moroboshi buffoon. No, no. Not at all. Perish thought. Indeed, perish the thinker while you were at it. His only concern was the beauty of the concealed art. For what else could it be but art? The beauteous Miss Sakura, in a tender moment, showing the one she loved how much she loved them. Yes, that sort of expression absolutely was art by any definition!

Yet art is only truly art when it is observed. Criticised. Especially by the worthy. A category which included the Mendou family no matter what the question. By this reasoning it was an act of injustice to not open this envelope and perform a truly thorough critique of the art contained therein!

On the other hand.

If he opened the envelope it would make it seem as though he was a weak willed pervert. It would destroy his public image, leave him potentially closer to Moroboshi's level than comfortable. Then again no level was far enough from that monkey to make one feel comfortable. Or clean. But that was a digression, the point was that opening the envelope for any reason would disqualify him from the Crusaders. It would make him unworthy.

A Mendou was never unworthy. Never, ever in their family history. His pride would not permit him failure–even the thought of the word assigned to himself made his stomach turn! And yet the contents beckoned to him. Why he could almost hear Sakura's voice, as if the pictures within were speaking to him. Seducing him like a siren at sea. The voice was saying-

"Mendou, give me that envelope."

He snapped alert and turned his head. The pure white light that wreathed Sakura of course was the first thing that he saw, before his eyes adjusted to recognize the furious visage of the beautiful woman. She was walking, no, stalking towards him with the naginata she wielded clenched tightly in her hands and its blade pointed directly at him.

And thus Mendou Shuutaro faced a new dilemma. It was beyond any single doubt that Sakura was aware of the contents of the folder, and it was certainly in her best interest to have it. However, this immediately triggered the fail condition of the exercise without a doubt. Incidentally, though clearly not at all relevant to the matter at hand, it would also mean the certain destruction of the contents before he even got a chance to see them.

"Mendou. Give me. The envelope." That was not a suggestion and certainly not friendly. Sakura was extremely intent on getting that envelope from him and "from his cold dead hands" was on the table.

It was then that the valorous side of Mendou spoke from deep within his conflicted heart.

" _What sort of man are you, to fear failure?"_

He stopped, and let this question cycle in his head. That same valorous part of him, the very noble blood that ran through his veins, then spoke again.

" _You may fail to become a Crusader, yes, but is it not nobler to do the right thing in the face of total defeat?!"_

Mendou's eyes widened as he realized that the honorable heart of the Mendou clan, the true center of what could otherwise be considered garish opulence, was truly speaking to him in his darkest hour!

" _You are a man, Mendou Shuutaro! And even in defeat, a man holds his head up! So that all shall know he was a man worthy of great honor!"_

That voice was right, it was truly glorious to accept defeat in an unwinnable situation. Humility was humanizing, it was admirable! It showed that for even his tremendous wealth and power that he was from the same clay as any commoner… the mark of a man worthy of his position!

" _There is no recourse, what must be done, will be done!"_

With that declaration, Mendou knew what he had to do.

Sakura had just reached out to take the envelope from the frozen young man's hands… when it suddenly disappeared from her grasp. She blinked, confused for a moment, when she looked up and saw Mendou had retreated from her, holding the envelope to his chest.

"Mendou, give the envelope…" Sakura began.

"I cannot," Mendou cut her off. "For I am a man."

He then turned and ran for his life, eyes glued onto the seal of the envelope that he began to fumble with as drool poured down from his mouth. "AND IF I AM GOING TO FAIL THEN I WILL FAIL WITH MY HEAD HELD HIGH!"

Right behind him, Sakura's berserker yell shook the air as she tore after him, her footsteps tearing apart the athletic field.

Up in the classroom, Shinobu, Natsuko, and Ran were trapped. They weren't going to look, the three of them weren't going to move, not even breathe. If Ataru were alerted, and found out that Shinobu, Ran, and Natsuko's envelopes were still in their possession, he would be after them next.

"We could try to hide our envelopes, Sherman-sensei said that was allowed," Ran then said.

Shinobu shook her head. "He could tear apart the entire school looking for them. He's got their scent now."

Natsuko punched the floor, causing both Ran and Shinobu to jump. "Shit, I didn't think that it would become this messed up! I just wanted to get into this damn clique and rub the dudechick's face into the dirt when I became the best in it!"

Shinobu looked over at her, and then inched away–Natsuko was making that scary face again. "You mean Ryuunosuke?"

"Yeah, I can't stand her! She just shows up and suddenly everyone is treating her like she's this prodigy tough girl! Like they've never seen that before!" Natsuko snarled. "I was gonna join the Crusaders and show everyone that she ain't worth crap…"

She shook her head. "… But I didn't sign up for _this."_

Natsuko wasn't even sure if she could fight whatever Ataru was now. That speed… that was unlike anything she'd seen anyone pull off.

Shinobu was of the same thought. He was so much faster now! It had been by the barest margin that she had caught him before, but she wasn't sure if she could do it again. Where had that speed been when he originally had to capture Lum? Wait.

"That's it! We need to find Lum!" Shinobu said. "She's the only one who can control him, now!"

" _I_ can control Darling, _any_ girl can control him," Ran pointed out.

"Any girl with no self-respect or taste in men," Natsuko said.

"Lum it is!" Ran quickly corrected.

"Where is she, though? Usually when he's perving around, she's hot on his heels," Natsuko pointed out.

"I don't know, but we first get out of here, and then we find her," Shinobu said.

There was a thumping on the window, and all three girls sighed in relief.

"Lum, thank goodness-" Shinobu began, but it was not Lum in the window.

Ataru, now resembling a walking bloodbath, clung to the window with one hand, tapping on the glass with the other. He leered at the three of them, his lips split into a completely depraved, open-mouthed grin, as he kept tapping on the glass… each tap causing a spider's web of cracks to spread.

All three young women stared up at Ataru, whose tapping was gradually speeding up. Calmly, they got up, bowed politely to Ataru, and walked towards the classroom door. Shinobu opened the door for Natsuko and Ran, who both bowed politely and in turn to Shinobu on their way out. Shinobu then stepped out of the classroom, slid the door shut, and then joined the other two girls in breaking into a wild sprint down the halls for the stairs as the doors exploded off their track.

As the doors, and half the desks in the classroom hit the wall, Ataru came charging out after the escaping obstacles, scrambling hand over hand out of the ruin he created, leaving long jagged gouges in the floor as he howled a single word:

" _Pictuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuures!"_

"This way!" Natsuko shouted as she hooked a left rather than attempt to go down the stairs. Shinobu was right behind her, while Ran brought up the rear, her relative slowness causing her to lag a little behind the sprinting ex-girlfriend of Ataru.

Behind them Ataru took off a chunk of the corner, as he swung around it, slingshotting towards Ran, who looked back at him with widening eyes. "Oh no-!"

Ataru took the moment she looked back as his opportunity to strike, lunging straight for her. "GIVE! ME! THE PICT-!"

There was a tremendous explosion then, as Ran whirled around and blasted Ataru point blank with an energy bazooka. In a fearsome, savage tone, the normally saccharine girl growled at her target. "Don't you dare lay a finger on me, you bastard!"

Down the stairs, Natsuko and Shinobu looked back at the cloud of smoke that billowed from the impact, and saw Ran skipping out of it and catching up to them. "Sorry, I lagged behind!"

"What was that?" Natsuko asked, as Ran rejoined them and they continued down the stairs.

"I don't know, but it was lucky!" Ran replied, before there was another crash above them, then another.

They couldn't see it, but they knew that Ataru was right behind them, stumbling and scrambling to catch up with them even as they leaped down the stairs flight by flight until they smashed open the doors and made it outside back onto the athletic field, right back where they started.

Where's Lum? Do you see her?" Shinobu asked as they jogged to a halt at the edge of the field.

Natsuko looked around as well. "Where's everyone else?"

"I think we're the only ones left," Ran said between gulps of air.

"Congratulations, the four of you actually are!" Nick then called via bullhorn from the roof.

The three girls looked up at the roof, where Nick and Ryuunosuke were standing. Ryuunosuke's hair was hiding her eyes, in that anime brooding/hiding true feelings sort of sense, while Nick was all smiles and malevolent glee that he wanted the whole world to see.

"Out of over fifty of you, you three girls have managed to hold out the longest against Ataru… mostly by virtue of letting everyone else get devoured but hey! A win's a win!" He stopped to correct himself. "Well, you have to actually win first, but if you do it then that's it! You're in!"

Shinobu was struck. "We're… the only ones?"

"But he said four the first time," Ran observed.

Natsuko shook her head. "Wait, who's the other one?"

Shinobu looked over, and she immediately paled. "Oh no."

When Natsuko and Ran looked, they too paled when they saw Mendou running straight towards him, struggling to open the envelope.

"I must see it! I must see it! I MUST SEE IT!" Mendou bellowed.

"GIVE ME THE PICTURE!" Sakura roared after him.

"Well, looks like it's going to be three after all," Nick lamented as Ryuunosuke clenched her teeth.

As Sakura charged after Mendou, she saw ahead of him the three girls, and in their own hands envelopes. Excellent, which meant that she didn't have to look very far for more.

Seeing her close in on Mendou, and in turn them, Shinobu looked down at her envelope and then at the onrushing pursuit. "Oh no! She's gonna get us, too!"

"So? Let's give them to her, then!" Natsuko said. "This isn't worth it!"

Ran looked at Natsuko, feeling a bit shocked. "Natsuko?"

"I'm serious! If Moroboshi gets them it's one thing, but making an enemy out of Sakura?!" Natsuko asked. "I'm not dumb and neither are you!"

"I don't want her to be our enemy either, but…!" Ran wasn't about to kiss away her own ambitions.

Uncertainty overcoming her, Shinobu looked at her envelope and then at Natsuko, and then up at Nick, before at the oncoming Mendou and Sakura… the latter of whom had suddenly stopped.

Wait, stopped?

She was looking past all of them now.

Oh no.

Slowly, Shinobu turned around, and she saw what shocked Sakura into stopping. The other girls stopped bickering and looked back. Even Mendou jogged to a halt at the sight that captivated them.

There was Ataru, a shimmering beacon of red and pink, the very picture of depravity.

 **|Captain|**

"Uh-oh," Ran squeaked as she cowered a bit behind Natsuko.

Shinobu withdrew from Ataru, extremely creeped out by the powerful presence of perversion that emanated from him.

"Ah, here we go," Nick said then.

"You can stop this," Ryuunosuke then announced.

Nick looked over. "Hm?"

Ryuunosuke then looked up at him, furious. "You can stop this, you jerk! This is only going on because you're letting it! This is your fault!"

"Yeah," Nick replied, "But that's the point."

Ryuunosuke recoiled, ever slightly. "… _What?"_

Nick let out a laugh. "Of course _I_ could stop it, but then what would you learn?"

Ryuunosuke's face twitched a little. "Do you see what he's doing? There's no way that we can fix this!"

"Sure you can, you just don't want to," Nick retorted.

Ryuunosuke was offended by that. "What the hell makes you even think that?!"

Nick smirked and looked over at the stand-off between Sakura and Ataru. "Give me a break. The people in this school have a complex about them. The solution to their problems is right there in front of them, but you're either too lazy or stupid to do it. If I had to characterise it, it'd be something along the lines of there's crackers in the pantry."

"Crackers in a pantry?" Ryuunosuke repeated as she watched the three girls and Mendou draw closer together as the two great forces them began inching inward to them. She had half a mind to deck him.

"You know, you're lying around reading some manga or something, when you get hungry," Nick went on. "You go to the pantry and find cans of beef stew, or more work intensive stuff like canned tuna waiting for you. All of that sounds great–but you don't want to open a can and microwave its contents, that takes too long. The tuna? You'd have to actually work on it to get something decent and you could screw it up."

Ataru's voice seemed to reverb as he offered his hand. "Give them to me."

"What the hell does any of that have to do with this?!" Ryuunosuke asked.

Mendou looked ready to bolt as Sakura lowered herself, gazing between her many targets intently.

"The bland, flavorless crackers that would be great with the stew or the tuna. You don't want to eat them by themselves but since you don't want to hassle with tuna or even microwave some stew, you just go about eating them while cursing how terrible they are."

Ryuunosuke was about to shout Nick down when she stopped to give what he was saying a second thought.

Nick shrugged his shoulders. "And it happens every time you get hungry, you settle for crackers even though it makes you hate them more."

Ryuunosuke looked from Nick back down to the confrontation, which only made her bile rise again. Was he saying what she thought he was saying?

As if he could read her mind, he answered her. "All it takes to eat well, is the determination to not settle on what's within grasp."

With those words came clarity. Understanding that Fujinami Ryuunosuke didn't think she was capable of crested over her, washing away her confusion at what Nick was trying to teach her. Yes, teach _her._

This wasn't a test of the Crusaders.

This was a test of their leader.

"Oi! Shinobu! Ran! Volleyball Girl!" Ryuunosuke then shouted out, catching the attention of everyone below.

When the three girls looked up at her, the command she gave them surprised them:

"Destroy the pictures or give them to Sakura! You've passed the test!"

"We did?" Ran asked, ecstatic at this turn of fortune.

"We did!" Shinobu said with relief.

"… We did, but…!" Natsuko began to say, right as Ataru loomed directly over them. His face a mask of depravity, and his eyes wildly bouncing around in their sockets as he looked at each of their envelopes in his struggle to decide which to take first.

It was during that moment that Nick leaned over and pitched himself off the roof, accelerating from his kickoff and twisting himself around to drive his right knee into the side of Ataru's head. Even as Ataru was stopped by the force of the blow, upon connection even Nick was impressed.

" _This aura…!"_ Nick thought in surprise, as his knee launched Ataru away from the girls. Landing, he hobbled a bit as an unfamiliar pain shot through his leg. "Huh…"

Like a ragdoll, Ataru went tumbling across the athletic field and crashed into the Tomobiki's wall, causing a good section to crack. Still he rose, a perverted chuckle escaping his lips.

"I barely felt that, teach!" He revealed as though he suddenly had all the power in their confrontation. He then adopted a ready pose. "Want to try that again, or are you going to let me have those pictures?!"

"You mean these pictures?" Sakura asked as she held the envelopes Shinobu, Ran, and Natsuko had given her to a lighter's flame and lit them up.

Ataru watched as the flames began to consume them, and then looked to Nick, who was smiling back wryly at the boy. Looking back at the pictures again, Ataru's eyes went from them to the stony-faced Sakura… and grinned broader.

"Well then, I'll just have a peek at the real deal!" He asserted before launching himself at incredible speed straight for Sakura.

Sakura quickly prepared to defend herself, when Nick pulled something from inside his suit and threw it into Ataru's face, causing him to stop dead in his tracks–frozen like a statue. The pink and red aura vanished, bursting away from him like a puff of smoke, and a long tremble of disgust ran through him before he recoiled back in horror.

Ryuunosuke, who made her way down from the roof of the school, stopped and stared at the object thrown with the other girls and Sakura. It was a yaoi manga and a hardcore one at that, not even the cover was censored.

Ryuunosuke looked over to Nick, feeling there was only one pertinent question to that. "Why do you have that?"

"Because I'm not picky," Nick replied.

Americans were weird, Ryuunosuke thought, before she decided that the results justified the means.

Speaking of the results, Ataru was trying his very best to get that horrible image out of his head. It was only one page, but there was so much happening on it! Too much! The male human body was not meant for those kinds of stresses!

"Ugh… who on Earth likes seeing guys doing that with other guys?" He groaned as his wits mostly returned. "Oh well… I still have plenty of beautiful pictures of Sakura to wash that image out of my head-"

"Moroboshi…!" Sakura growled as she advanced ahead of the other three girls, while rolling up his sleeve. Not too far ahead, though, Shinobu, Natsuko, and Ran all had similarly ominous looks while they readied their own fists for beating him down.

"Ah! Sakura-chan!" Ataru quickly greeted. "I was really impressed by your pictures, by the way, maybe you could do another photo-shoot for me?"

"I WILL KILL YOU!" Sakura yelled, before a pillar of fire fell from the sky and incinerated Ataru where he stood, the flames burning much larger and brighter thanks to all of the photographs stuffed under his jacket and pants. In fact it grew so bright and intense that the girls had to quickly back away from it.

"What the hell?!" Ryuunosuke shouted.

"Oh yeah, I forgot that since it was a rush-job, I had to use cheap and inflammable ink for the dye packs," Nick said.

"Yes, but why is he on fire?!" Shinobu said to both of them before she noticed Lum descending from the sky joined by a small toddler-sized Oni with the same hair color as Lum but a single horn out the back of his head. "Oh! Lum! Ten-chan!"

Lum descended and set her feet down, while Ten floated at around her eye level. The oni toddler was looking back at the now running around and screaming flames with a look mixed of satisfaction and malicious glee. "Sorry, I went to go get Ten-chan so he could burn all of the photographs."

"Hello!" The alien toddler greeted.

She looked at the other girls. "Is everyone okay?"

Natsuko sniffed haughtily. "Yeah, we're fine. We had this in the bag, actually."

Ran agreed. "Yes, we didn't need your help at all… but it was very welcomed nonetheless."

Ran was especially pleased. She was a Crusader now! Which meant that she would soon be able to use her power as she saw fit, and as she stared at Lum with the falsest of smiles, she could only imagine what sort of abuses of that power she'd get up to.

Shinobu was just relieved to see that everything was over and justice had been served. Which she showed by hugging Ten, who flushed at the appreciation. "Thank you so much Lum, Ten-chan!"

Though Natsuko wasn't showing it for the moment, she wasn't happy at all as she looked towards Ryuunosuke and scowled. The dudechick had easily asserted herself over them as a group, calling them all Crusaders despite the rules of this whole contest. She was still the leader of this clique, so it appeared.

"Fujinami," Natsuko said to her.

Ryuunosuke looked over to her. "What is it, volleyball girl?"

"The name's Natsuko," she replied, "And if you're going to keep me in this group there's two things I'm going to warn you about."

Ryuunosuke cocked her head to one side. "What is it?"

"One, I hate men and I'm not gonna tolerate any in this group," Natsuko replied, "Two, I don't like you, and the first chance I get I'm going to get you out of here."

Ryuunosuke recoiled a bit at that, and was about ready to tell her to fuck off, when Nick clapped a hand onto her shoulder to interrupt her. "A bold statement to make, Nat-chan! Welcome to the Crusade."

Ryuunosuke looked to Nick. "Did you just hear what she said?"

Nick affirmed it with a nod. "I did, ambition will get you far in life, but do remember that if you want something, you'll have to fight for it."

He then gave Ryuunosuke a more pointed look. "Because only those with the will to fight deserve anything in life at all."

Natsuko wasn't spared that look either as he said, "So don't disappoint me."

With a quick nod, Natsuko agreed, while Ryuunosuke brooded. This girl was going to get in her way for what? What beef did she even have with her? Whatever the case, she wasn't going to put up with it, among other things.

"Hey, Lum," Ryuunosuke then called to the alien girl.

Lum looked over. "Yes, Ryuunosuke?"

"You're in, too."

At this Nick's brows rose, because he caught the look of shock and fury that crossed Ran's face the moment his student said it.

"What?!" Ran shouted a little too angrily, but not enough to draw attention before she measured her tone. "B-but I mean… she didn't even participate in the trial!"

"She's got more firepower than we can ask for, and she can stop Ataru better than anyone. I'd be dumb not to ask her to join," Ryuunosuke pointed out.

Shinobu agreed. "Yes, against Ataru we need all the help we can get."

Ran bristled, but recomposed herself again just as quick. "Well, Lum is my dear friend, so… I suppose it won't hurt too much to work alongside her."

Inside, she was tearing herself apart. Her dreams, her ambitions, all dashed!

"I want to help, too!" Ten immediately requested.

Lum looked up at him. "Of course you'll help, Ten-chan."

"Yay!" The small alien cheered.

At that moment, with a loud thump and a quieter sizzle, Ataru finally managed to put out the flames and lay covered in soot and char. Seeing this, Nick nodded in approval.

"Well then," he said, "I suppose this about wraps it up. A real shame, I had hoped there'd be one boy in the Crusaders."

It was at that moment, that Shinobu remember. "Ah, what about Mendou-kun-"

Sakura, who'd been scowling at Ataru's charred, moaning body to that point then remembered him too. "Mendou! He still has a-!"

They all turned to look… and found Mendou on his hands and knees, splattered with red dye, and silently sobbing tears onto the photograph he pulled from the envelope. He had failed, and in failure he asserted that in it he would find himself still a man, having gambled everything on an opportunity to see what few could ever hope to see.

He made this choice, and he took this arrow to his name, his pride, and his dignity. For the sake of a glimpse at what could only be considered a treasure.

Instead, he received a picture of Cherry, Sakura's old and wrinkled Uncle, staring uncomprehendingly at the smartphone's camera–the image of him triggering the camera as he tinkered with it filling its entire face destroying Mendou's soul.

 **|Reditus Nigri|**

With the try-outs over and the students leaving the school, Nick decided to cut Ryuunosuke loose for the rest of the afternoon to work out the organization for her Crusaders. Mendou left the school without another word, climbing aboard a helicopter and flying off to his palatial home, Ataru was gone as well, hauled off by Lum as she and the other girls left the gates.

In front of the same stage today's chaos began, Nick finished rolling marijuana into a cigarette, popped the joint between his lips, and lit up. After a long inhale, he held it in and let the smoke curl out into the wind in a relaxed sigh.

"Holy shit, if I ever meet Misao's weed guy, I'm going to let him fuck my wife," he decided.

"Sherman."

And there was Sakura, dressed in her miko robes and holding the naginata from before in her right hand. In her left hand she was holding her violated smartphone and in her eyes she was holding a look of burning contempt for the man in front of her.

"Ah, Sakura-sensei. I've been waiting for you, I wanted to have a chat about today," he revealed as he turned to face her, the joint still held in the corner of his mouth.

It was promptly swatted from his lips by the blade of Sakura's weapon as an ominous aura wreathed her.

"There is nothing to discuss," Sakura plainly retorted, "The only words out of your mouth I will hear for the next five minutes will be your sobbing apologies."

Nick looked at where the wisps of smoke rose from his downed joint, and then back towards Sakura. "I'll start by saying that I deserved that. Then I'll add that I most certainly deserve this beating."

The mirth then vanished from his face, replaced with a cold stare that–at first sight–caused Sakura's aura to chill slightly.

"But you won't be doing that."

"Do you think you can flash a glare and think I'll be scared of you?!" Sakura asked.

"No, but if you come at me, not only will you lose, but every pervert in this school will get all of your pictures to your fiancé emailed to them," Nick replied.

Sakura's heart nearly stopped right there, and her aura vanished in that same instant.

"Y-you… you… what?" She wasn't sure if she had even heard that despite already starting shake with fear.

"I will let everyone see the _real_ you, Sakura-sensei, and you will never be taken seriously at this school again." Nick's usual cavalier attitude was absent entirely, replaced with an almost empty monotone were it not for the subtly intimidating edge.

Sakura faltered, the naginata trembling in her grip, but she didn't cow. "You wouldn't dare… Ryuunosuke would despise you, everyone would!"

"She'd get over it, I'm still the lesser evil even after I told her what I planned to do," Nick replied.

Sakura's trembling grew, the naginata rattling audibly. How deep did he pull that girl in with his dark charisma, that she would agree to something as abhorrent as this?

Rather than address that, she asked a more pertinent question. "What do you want from me, that you'd resort to this?"

"There's only one thing I want, Sakura-sensei," Nick replied.

"My cooperation in your sadistic games? My approval?" Sakura asked bitterly. "My body?!"

"None of those things," Nick said, "I want you… gone."

"Gone?" Sakura didn't expect that. He just wanted her to resign?

He laid it bare. "It's nothing personal, Sakura-sensei. As a matter of fact, if it weren't for Moroboshi I'd keep you around."

At her perplexed look in regard to that statement, he elaborated. "Moroboshi's a real troublemaker. As much as everything beats him down for being him, he doesn't have a single lick of remorse for his ways. And why should he? He has everything he's wants: his youth, plenty of girls to chase around, and no consequence ever really lasts. He just dusts himself off and keeps doing as he pleases."

"And you want to get rid of _me?"_ Sakura asked.

Another voice then called out, a woman's with a French accent. "Oui, for as long as everything is normal, then he has no reason to improve."

Sakura turned slightly to look back, a foreign woman with long bushy and curled blonde hair and gentle brown eyes stood a few paces behind her. She was only a hair shorter than Sakura herself, but her body was noticeably thicker proportionately at the hips and waist. She wore a brown suit and skirt combo under a gray coat, like some drab office lady.

Sakura looked the foreigner over. "You are?"

"Your replacement, if you know what's good for you," Nick said.

"For Ataru as well," the foreign woman replied before bowing to Sakura. "Salut! I am Mercedes Keeper, a friend of the Monsieur."

Sakura narrowed her eyes at this woman. She couldn't feel _anything_ from her.

"Attacking Moroboshi isn't the answer to fixing him, if you want to see results… his entire world needs to crumble around him," Nick went on, quickly recapturing Sakura's attention, "And for that to happen he's got to start losing the things he loves."

Starting with herself, Sakura realized. She drew back the naginata, and rested the shaft of the weapon on the ground. Looking from Nick to Mercedes and back again, she slowly nodded.

"I will leave, and you will destroy every last photograph," she agreed.

"Bon!" Mercedes said.

"Sounds good," Nick said.

"Though, whatever your big plans are for Moroboshi, for Ryuunosuke, or any of these students," Sakura said ominously, "Don't count on them surviving Moroboshi's luck."

She turned around. "I will hand in my letter of resignation tomorrow."

Before she left, Nick called to her. "I'm not going to leave you just twisting in the wind, Sakura-sensei. Here, I got something for you."

When she turned back, he tossed a business card to her that she caught.

"Give them a call if you want a much better job," he offered, "It's the same thing… just at a school with fewer perverts."

Sakura looked down at the card, and then back up at Nick and Mercedes again. With a snort, she turned and continued walking away.

"You arrived here quicker than I thought you would," Nick said to Mercedes.

"Well, you called me at a very good time, and for a very good reason," the new foreigner replied. "Is this really how it all starts, by tinkering with a few high school students?"

"It'll be better than starting in primary school like us, right?" Nick asked her.

Mercedes agreed. "I'll say, there is something to be enjoyed about the energy and vigor of youth. Raising two teenagers showed me that. So much luck is needed!"

She then brought a finger to her chin. "Speaking of, do you think Ataru's bad luck is a threat?"

Nick shrugged his shoulders. "As long as we stay on our toes and keep our plan versatile, I'm not worried. Ataru may be a statistical impossibility… but there's nothing that can throw at us that we shouldn't be able to handle."

 **|Challenge Accepted|**

Far away in the Hida Mountains and deep under a ruined and blighted ground, a creature long thought dead stirred. After over a decade of imprisonment within a container that sapped it of its strength and sealed behind a barrier of all that was good, the creature felt something nostalgic wash over it.

A power.

An aura.

Nothing faint, no, in fact the aura was stronger than anything it felt before. A power that rivaled the energy it once wielded with impunity against the world. In fact, it was so powerful, that as it washed over it, the creature felt its own power reawaken, crumbling and burning away the container of fabric and paper that held it in place.

The blighted ground rumbled, and the rope-bound boulder that closed off the creature's tomb cracked and split. Then, with a great explosion the rock and the rope were destroyed by a brilliant pink light shining straight up from underneath it.

Two small, wrinkled hands gripped the edge of the deep hole once called their owner's resting place, before the shrunken, decrepit creature fully crawled its way out. Despite the power that radiated from it, it was a tiny creature, barely the size of a child and yet clearly older than most tortoises.

Standing up, the short old demon stared eastward, the pink aura around it easily warding off the bolts of lightning that fell upon it–as if God Himself were attempting to strike the beast down.

"It's been long," it said aloud as the battle aura grew. "Long enough."

One final bolt of lightning came down, the air exploding around it before the creature thrust up its right hand, dispelling its aura and splitting the bolt all the way back up to the clouds overhead, blasting a hole in them.

"It's time… to claim my apprentice!" The creature known as Happosai, The Grand Master of the School of Indiscriminate Grappling, declared to the broken heavens.

* * *

A/N: Dun dun dun?


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Urusei Yatsura is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and AnimEigo. Support the official release, or don't… because _holy shit._

 **Sensei**

 **A Urusei Yatsura Story**

 **Chapter 5/?**

 **|Mendou Shuutaro: A Man Who Has Lost Control|**

It was not supposed to happen like this.

This is not the way the universe worked.

Since that dreadful afternoon, Mendou Shuutaro was convinced that something had caused fate itself to twist and snap. Everything that he had worked for, everything that he represented, was suddenly gone. The man who rose to the top of a school of savages was now just another face in its crowd. His wealth, his name, it was suddenly… worthless?

As he sat at the foot of his expensive bed, he outright wondered if he should bother to attend a school where he has no place or meaning. Two weeks, and Tomobiki High School had indeed begun its transformation underneath the auspices of The Crusaders into a peaceful establishment of learning. The rub lay in the fact that Mendou Shuutaro was not a part of it.

It went against everything he'd been raised to believe. His family were the cornerstone around which Tomobiki, nay Japan itself turned. To be forced aside, to have his role reduced to no better than the little people his birthright placed him well above… it was blasphemy.

This was the price of fai–he couldn't even conceive of the word in his mind, at least not in the context of himself! His unsuccessful entry into the Crusaders was a mistake, the result of only the slightest lapse of judgement! It wasn't like he was Moroboshi or something!

Even worse, with the Crusaders in place, the disciplinary committee he had run with the aid of other honor students in the school, the Shadow Scholastic Life Leaders, was considered superfluous and rendered defunct. They had no more power than he in the face of Fujinami Ryuunosuke's militancy.

The fall of Mendou Shuutaro had been a precipitous one, and now here he lay at the bottom–in the mud with all of the other filth.

"Without the Crusaders, without my Shadow Committee, I am no longer the star of the student body. My wealth means nothing if I don't have the authority to back it up," he said aloud in the dim light of his room.

"How can this get worse?"

The telephone at his bedside phone rang, which was an unusual occurrence. Especially so early in the morning. Turning around, he went over and picked it up. "Mendou Shuutaro speaking, who calls me this fine morn-"

"It's time for you to honor your end of our agreement, Mendou."

And there was his answer. On the other end of the line was a young woman who–like all the others–Mendou would gladly do anything for. In this case, however, this was a problem.

Because this girl was Saginomiya Asuka, the Student Council President and star student of Kolkhoz High School.

"Asuka-san, it's rather early-" He tried to say.

"Someone burned down the Culinary Arts Department of my school, and manhandled over two dozen of my students," Asuka snapped at him. "I have no doubt in my mind that it was The Black Rose's doing, and further less doubt she's going to attack again soon."

Beads of sweat formed on Mendou's brow. "She… she burned down part of the school?"

"Do I have to repeat myself, Mendou?!" Asuka shouted. "My student council, the cowards, are pleading for some kind of support from your school of freaks, and I can't say no to them anymore! So send those Crusaders you've been bragging about to me post-haste… there's an ominous wind blowing, or so says one of my advisors…"

Mendou had almost forgotten, in his despair. Weeks ago, when word came out of a tertiary thorn in his side named Kuno Tatewaki ending up in the hospital for an extended time, he was quickly approached by Saginomiya Asuka, the White Lily of Kolkhoz High School, to forge an agreement in order to essentially spread their influence over the school.

While he was initially disinterested at such an agreement, rumors of the beauty of its female student body convinced him otherwise, and the plan to exert their schools' influences over the Furinkan Neighborhood would've gone smoothly–were it not for Tatewaki's sister, Kodachi.

When she took over the school, she began a grand reformation that literally transformed the school overnight. With that, their agreement became a formal alliance, at Asuka-san's insistence again as the rivalry between White Lily and Black Rose was well-known. Mendou, wise to keep away from the bickering between ladies, nevertheless agreed to a formal alliance bolstered by the promise of the Crusaders.

He didn't get into the Crusaders.

And now apparently the crazy bitches were burning down school buildings.

"Mendou!" Asuka shouted, snapping from his brief mental exposition. "Will you honor your end of our agreement or not?"

Were he a man not given to bending to the whims of even a passably attractive woman, Mendou would've hung up the phone without another word.

Mendou, now bathed in sweat, stared at the phone and then brought it back to his ear. "Y-yes, of course! The Crusaders will be at your b-beck and call, you needn't worry about a thing."

"Good," Asuka said, her tone now much sweeter. "I expect good things in our future, Mendou-kun."

With that the call ended, and Mendou gulped. Just what he needed atop his struggles. After the disaster of sending his father's best men to deal with Sherman, he was barred from using the private army of the Mendou family at his whim for still another week! He didn't have the position to lead the Crusaders, he had no army, no followers, not even the shadows.

How could he honor his agreement to the beautiful Asuka-san?

Perhaps he could call upon his long time rival and childhood friend, Ton-chan?

No, his pride could not allow it.

Maybe he could ask Ryoko for help?

… Yeah, no, fuck _that._

Mendou Shuutaro rose from his bed, and sighed. It disgusted him to no end, but he had only one hope.

 **|Divine Crusaders|**

Horaki Emi had done it, the beautiful and popular star of the Tomobiki High School Light Music Club had–after over an hour non-stop–had achieved the greatest feat of saxophone of all time. She had managed to play the Saxophone solo from Sunstroke Project & Olia Tira's Eurovision smashing hit "Run Away" in perfect loops without pausing for a break and it had been streamed to the world.

For her feat, a certain online personality had offered to donate over one hundred million yen to the charity of their choice, and Reporters Without Borders were about to get a fat check. As Emi also had aspirations to be an international journalist, this was a huge thing to put on her future resume–even if it was absolutely silly.

On the shoulders of her fellow Light Music Club members, Emi was carried off to celebrate and get a much needed drink from the cafeteria, leaving their equipment in the club room that wasn't even locked–which was a boon to the young man who crept into the room a few minutes later. Scanning the room, he spied the saxophone sitting on its stand.

"Yatta! It's right here where they left it!" The young man, a third year student, said as he crept close to the saxophone and–with great care and a pair of rubber gloves–removed the saxophone's mouthpiece and placed it in a plastic bag.

Holding up the bag, he marveled at the contents and grinned. "This is the best, I can't believe I was able to get it so easily!"

He turned and headed for the door, and after stuffing the bag up under his shirt he stepped out into the sparsely populated classroom. It was between periods, with a few straggling students slow to return to their classes for the next period, so there was no one who could've seen-

"Ne, Akira-senpai," Ran then cheerily said to the boy–who went rigid with fright, "Exactly what were you planning on doing with that mouthpiece?"

The boy, Akira, turned to face Ran and put on a shy smile. He was a smallish young man, on the cute side or so he convinced himself. He was lucky to have run into Ran. Ran liked small and cute things, so he was in the clear if he could turn on the charm.

"Ah, m-mouthpiece? I was just admiring Emi-san's saxophone… was something missing from it?" The cute-looking young man asked.

Ran held up a phone, showing that the cameras for the live stream were still on–and him totally stealing the mouthpiece from the saxophone. "Now, don't you think it's a little silly to lie to Ran-chan?"

Akira looked at the image of him stealing the mouthpiece, at the smiling Ran, and then did the one thing he figured would be best. He turned and ran for his life down the hall.

"Ah,why do they give in to their impulses?" Ran watched him go, quietly counting to three before calling up Natsuko. "Nat-chan, Shinobu-chan, we have a runner~! He's headed for the east stairwell."

"East stairwell, huh? What floor?" Natsuko asked as she sat at the top of the stairs just short of the second floor in Tomobiki High School's east stairwell.

"Third floor!"

"Lucky me, he's headed my way."

"Do be careful landing hits to his stomach, he's stolen Horaki Emi-chan's saxophone mouthpiece and hid it up under his shirt!" Ran advised.

Natsuko made a face. "Why would anyone steal that?"

"Why would any pervert steal anything a girl's mouth has been~?" Ran asked.

Natsuko made a worse face. "Oh, _EW."_

She then heard footsteps, fast ones, and her face became a bestial smile. "Here he comes, I'm in position take over the pursuit."

"I'll go 'round the other way, then!" Ran replied.

Shinobu then spoke up on the radio. She was on the second floor, leaving classroom 2-4 and speaking into a bluetooth earpiece. "I am on the second floor, at 2-4. I am in position to stop him!"

On the roof of the school, Ryuunosuke stood on the railing as the wind blew through her hair, the collar of her sailor fuku, and her pleated skirt. Around her waist was a harness connecting her to a long rope anchored into the roof. She also wore a pair of sunglasses, which doubled as a bluetooth microphone.

"Just like we practiced, ladies?" She asked.

Natsuko snorted. "Just don't mess up like you did last time."

Ryuunosuke rolled her eyes. "Is the window open, Shinobu?"

"It is!"

"Then I won't!" Ryuunosuke snapped at Natsuko, who was too busy smiling devilishly at Akira as he reached the bottom of the stairs and saw her.

"Don't care, in pursuit!" She called out as Akira shrieked and bolted down the hallway. "Get back here, Sissy!"

Clawing at the floor, Natsuko launched herself into the chase, running after the fleeing third-year with a beastial howl and a matching facial expression. She used to hate their cowardice, but now she _loved it_ when the sissies ran! They were so fast, it was like she was a lioness running down a freakin' gazelle!

Akira was too busy looking back at the pursuing Natsuko to notice that Shinobu was now standing out in the hallway in front of him, her arms outstretched in a blocker position. The distance closed, and Akira passed Classroom 2-1, then 2-2, and finally 2-3 before Shinobu called out.

"Ryuu-chan, NOW!"

Ryuunosuke pitched herself over the railing, and set her feet on the side of the school's face. Then, with a graceful spring she leaped out and began to descend the rope. Twisting herself around it, with the grace and form of a rope dancer, she turned herself around into a kicking position and began to hurtle towards an open window on the second floor.

Akira, looking ahead now, blanched with fright and skidded to a stop in front of Shinobu. This was his fatal mistake, for as he turned round to find another way out, he found himself face to feet with Ryuunosuke, as she swung through the open hallway window and drilled a double kick into his face.

Ryuunosuke flipped off his face, and Akira went into the wall between 2-4's door and windows–cracking both and the wall as he bounced off. Already stunned and possibly unconscious, he could do nothing to defend from Natsuko's lariat, which caught his neck and launched him towards Shinobu, who had already raised her foot above her head for the axe kick.

"You are under!" Shinobu called out, before she slammed her heel down on Akira's head, driving him face first into the floor and cracking it from wall to wall. "ARREST!"

Resembling a lawn dart from the force of the impact, Akira twitched and trembled, as Ran trotted up and reached into his shirt to pull out the undamaged mouthpiece. "Another pervert foiled and another successful case solved for the Crusaders!"

"I wouldn't call it foiled or solved yet," Ryuunosuke said as the classroom doors opened and other students began gathering to see what the racket was about. This crowd soon thinned and parted, however, to make room for the arrival of several third year students–including the Classroom Representative of Room 3-3–a student by the name of Sakamura.

"Crusaders, what's happened here?" The clean-cut black-haired, bespectacled, and almost perfect young man asked.

Ryuunosuke looked at the heap that was now Akira and up at Sakamura. "A pervert stole a mouthpiece from Horaki in 3-3. You know anything about this?"

Sakamura adjusted his glasses and smoothly nodded. "Why yes, Akira-san has been stalking Horaki-chan for quite some time. I have chastised him for it before, but it seems that his lusts for her have become overwhelming."

He shook his head. "I thank you, Fujinami-san, and the rest of you Crusaders. I will take care of returning Horaki-chan her mouthpiece, and making sure that one of my classmates gets what he has coming."

As Sakamura gestured for two other classmates to pick up the pervert, Ryuunosuke hummed and then said. "I hope you included hazard pay in that, Sakamura-senpai."

The fabulous student stopped and then took a step back, his stylish glasses going opaque. "E-excuse me?"

"How much did you pay him to steal Horaki's mouthpiece for you?" Ryuunosuke asked, as Shinobu, Natsuko, and Ran all turned their attention to the Class Representative. They weren't alone in it, as every other student in the hall did the same.

Sakamura grew defensive. "P-pay him? I never… what on Earth are you saying?!"

"I'm saying that one of our first cases was Horaki coming to us saying that she was being stalked by someone with a lot of power, because everyone she went to for help didn't–or rather couldn't," Ryuunosuke said. "When she came to us, we decided to keep tabs on the boys in 3-3, and we got this."

Ryuunosuke held up her phone, showing a conversation between Sakamura and Akira, along with three other boys who were clearly there to intimidate the smaller boy. The audio of the conversation revealed it all: steal the mouthpiece, and get paid. Squeal, and get pummeled.

Sakamura recoiled. "Huh? How were you able to film that?"

"How indeed?" A voice called from behind him, and Sakamura slowly turned around and looked up to see Lum hovering over the heads of other students, electricity crackling over her body. She was holding her own phone, and wearing a smug smile down at the third year.

Sakamura stared at the phone, and then gulped. He then turned around, and found that Ryuunosuke was wrapped in an aura and wearing a look of murder.

"But before even that, we dug a little deeper… and found that you've been stealing quite a few things from Horaki. Her underwear from gym locker rooms, her spare swimsuit, and even sanitary napkins? Seriously?"

"Not even Moroboshi is that disgusting–I hope," Shinobu said.

"Not into blood stuff," Ataru called from inside 2-4.

"A sliver of decency less than Moroboshi? Now there's a death sentence if I ever heard one," Natsuko growled.

"D-death?!" Sakamura yelped, sweating profusely.

"Well, you'll be pleading for it~," Ran promised.

Sakamura was soon surrounded by disgusted stares from the other students, backing him into a proverbial corner. As the other students began to converge around him, murmuring "pervert" and "gross" and "stalker", he went from frightened… to angry.

"Y-you damn fascists!" He shouted at Ryuunosuke. "Y-you can't pin this on me, I'm an Honors Student! A-A Class Representative! I would never… I would never-!"

"Oh please, if there's one thing I've learned about the guys in this school, it's that not a single one of you are above it all," Ryuunosuke said.

She cracked her knuckles, and began walking towards him, Shinobu and Natsuko doing the same while Lum floated closer.

"'Sa matter of fact? You're pretty much in the same scum tier as Moroboshi."

"Excuse you, not into blood," Ataru piped in.

"Yeah, you're right, Moroboshi," Ryuunosuke acquiesced, "And if you're lower than Moroboshi… and you see what we do to _him…"_

Her eyes lit up with malice, as did the other girls of the Crusaders.

"What are we gonna do to _you?"_

Sakamura swallowed hard, in fear.

 **|Dunning-Krueger|**

Sakamura got his answer in the form of a beating that Nick doubted they could even air on prime time television because it was so brutal. Still, it was another positive mark for his Crusaders as he watched the recording of the incident on the school's newly installed CCTV. He was at his desk in the teacher's office pool, and Ryuunosuke stood before him, with her hands folded behind her back.

"That's the fifth member of that so-called Shadow Honor Student Committee that we've found out was a gigantic pervert since we started this gig," Ryuunosuke lamented.

"Who would've thought, a secret cabal of the best and brightest students using their connections and influences to flaunt power over their students," Nick said in a faux-shocked tone.

Ryuunosuke just shook her head. "I wasn't even surprised after seeing how Mendou went tits up."

"The grim reality of your work is now settling in, this whole school's a swamp that needs a drainin'," Nick then said.

"Ah well, it ain't like I'm not having fun," Ryuunosuke decided. "Knocking these chuckleheads around is something I can do all day."

Upon hearing that, Nick's expression went from sarcastic to annoyed. "Now, now, I am a little disappointed."

Ryuunosuke folded her arms. "What's to be disappointed about? The Crusaders are kickin' ass and takin' names. Most of the perverts we beat into the dirt don't come back, and we haven't had a riot like the ones we used to have since the last one."

Nick leaned back into his wheeled chair, and then turned to the side. He brought the tips of his fingers together and let out a hum.

"In you, Ryuu-chan."

Ryuunosuke recoiled. "Wait, in me? For what?"

"You're enjoying _this,"_ Nick said, "In fact you're having entirely too much fun."

"Well, why not? I've been venting all over these punks for days, weeks, and I'm not going back to square one with any of them!" Ryuunosuke declared. "I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere in my life!"

"Yeah, I get that," Nick said, "But you're already too big for this pond, my unnaturally large guppy."

Ryuunosuke gawked at him. "Huh? That's it?"

Nick turned back to face her. "I agreed to show you Heaven, and I intend to. It's just that while you're more advanced than I thought, you're not remotely near the level I want you to be at."

He then waved his hand. "And you don't seem to have any interest in reaching that level."

Ryuunosuke cocked her head to one side. "What level do you want me to be at? You haven't even taught me any techniques or anything."

Nick sighed. "You weren't listening."

Ryuunosuke snorted. "What was I supposed to be listening for? I've been kicking so much ass that I'm pretty damn sure I could take on every other girl in the Crusaders, I know I got every boy beat!"

She then made a bold declaration. "Hell, if my arm wasn't messed up, I probably would've mopped the floor with Kurama! So why aren't you taking training me seriously and just giving me this talk about being disappoint-"

Nick then slammed a hand on the table, silencing Ryuunosuke. "All right, shut up!"

Lifting his hand, he gestured to her. " _This shit,_ is exactly what I'm talking about. You've been gallivantin' around the school for a couple of weeks and you think you're the shit. That's nice and all, but I'm not looking for 'I'm ready' from you. Which you aren't, not even in the slightest."

Ryuunosuke scowled. "Okay, then what do you want me to say?"

Nick rolled his eyes. "If you have to ask…"

"Oh bull, you're not allowed to go all cryptic on me after talking all that shit just now!" Ryuunosuke shouted at him. "What am I not getting here, what do I have to do to be at the level you want me to be at?"

Nick looked back at her, and shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, go for a walk? Get outside more? Fight someone you haven't before?"

Ryuunosuke cocked an eyebrow. "That's it?"

"That's it," Nick said, "You've beaten up most of the school? That's nice, but the last time you fought something from outside it? You got your shoulder dislocated."

He leaned back in his seat. "You probably would've been mauled if it weren't for Sasha. The world is full of dangerous beasts like those two, or like me, and some are your age… or younger."

Ryuunosuke snorted. "Kurama caught me off guard, if I had been ready-"

"Shut up," Nick said, "I don't want to hear excuses. I just want you to show me that you're ready, not tell me."

"But I am ready, and I'll show you I'm ready!" Ryuunosuke snapped at him.

"Oh? And how, pray-tell?" Nick asked.

"I'm willin' to put my Sailor Fuku on the line," Ryuunosuke answered.

The corners of Nick's mouth curled up. "You mean, if you can't prove to me you're ready, you'll go back to dressing as a boy?"

"I will beat anyone who challenges me to a fight in the next week, without getting touched at all. If I can't do that, then I will _burn_ my Sailor Fuku!" Ryuunosuke declared.

"The fuck you will, that's not yours to burn," Nick said after the thought of no more Naughty Schoolgirl Nodoka flashed before his eyes.

"I'll still do it!" Ryuunosuke shouted at him. "I will make you see that I'm ready on my terms, take that to the bank."

"Consider it deposited," Nick said, before he gestured to Ryuunosuke. "You're dismissed, Captain."

Ryuunosuke huffed and marched for the door. She just about reached it when Nick called out. "Oh yeah, got some news for you."

She looked back. "What?"

"Word on the street is that some delinquents from some Rival Schools are on the verge of going to war," he said, "I'm not too keen on you kids and your gang violence, but for the sake of the school I'd keep ahead of that were I you."

"Yeah whatever," Ryuunosuke said as she turned back to the door, granting a nod to Sakura as she walked in. The school's nurse barely regarded her with a blithe glance before she walked over to her desk in the office pool and sat down. She produced a dieting magazine from a drawer and began to read.

Nick grabbed his computer's mouse and hit play, starting another episode of 3D mocap not-anime girls. As the awful singing of the opening began, he leaned back into his chair and looked over towards Sakura.

"So, when's the last day?" He asked her.

Sakura looked over at him. "Soon."

Nick looked at his computer again. "It's tomorrow."

Sakura nodded slowly, and went back to reading the magazine. "Good."

 **|Final Option|**

Really the last thing that Mendou wanted to see during lunch outside, was Sakamura bruised and bloodied in a cage with a sign reading "beast" hanging around his neck, but there it was. He was the head of all the Third year students, and easily the most influential before his arrival and the formation of the Shadow Scholastic Life Leaders Council. The Council was all but crumbled now. With every new capture of a corrupt example, the ability of the Class Reps to hold power over their students shrank, leaving more and more of that responsibility to the Crusaders.

If there was even a single male student amongst them, he could go against them with the cleanest of consciences, but alas… the lovely women who made up their ranks were as untouchable to him as his beloved pet octopi back home. He couldn't dare sully his hands with bringing them any direct harm.

Sadly, with time against him, he only had one recourse.

"Moroboshi," he said to Ataru, who was sitting nearby.

Ataru looked back at Mendou. "Mendou."

"The Crusaders are leaving quite a mark on the school, aren't they?" Mendou asked as he looked upon the caged Sakamura.

"Yeah," Ataru agreed before gesturing to Sakamura. "This guy was stealing a girl's sanitary napkins, can you believe that? There's being a pervert, but then there's being a _creep."_

Mendou didn't want to think about that; he regarded Sakamura-senpai as someone to rely on within the Shadow Scholastic Life Leaders Council. "It seems that all of the other Honor Students I allied with were perverts of some kind."

Ataru snorted. "Guess you're no better than me after all, huh Mendou?"

And then Ataru was catching Mendou's sword between his palms. Over him, Mendou huffed in anger. "The day I'm seen as anything like you is the day my sword breaks!"

Ataru managed to kick Mendou back and let out an exasperated "Sheesh." Folding his arms, he looked away from Mendou. "You all may as well be seen like me by those Crusaders. All this time they've been running around, and not a single girl has been caught out by them? They're just going after us guys left and right."

Mendou resheathed his sword. "Yes, their own corruption hasn't escaped my notice. They are merely exerting their power to punish boys for being boys, it's flagrant abuse."

He hummed and began to pace around Ataru. "Something must be done to diminish their power, but what?"

He looked out the corner of his eye at Ataru, this was his cue to pitch whatever plan that most assuredly needed Mendou's money to work.

Ataru mulled it over, and then spoke: "You know, I had an idea on how to at least get them to stop working so well together."

"Go on," Mendou said.

"Girls are crazy competitive with each other; you get them fighting each other over something and they'll forget about everything else," Ataru put forward.

Mendou stared at Ataru, surprised at how such a simple solution could work so well. It just needed to be put in the right context.

"A contest for the best girl in school?" Mendou suggested.

Ataru brightened. "Yeah! The girls would be ripping each other apart to win that, well their clothes at least."

Mendou sneered at that, of course Moroboshi would take _that_ from this.

"A beauty contest to decide who is the best girl?" And then both boys were blinded by the late morning sun shining off the top of the Principal's head.

"A-ah… ow… Principal…?!" Ataru sputtered as he shielded his eyes.

"Between these new Crusaders, no less? It'd certainly go a ways towards warming the relations between our police and the public." The Principal had seemed to have come out of nowhere, but was nevertheless now sitting with Ataru and Mendou, accompanied as well by the large calico-colored ghost cat that haunted the former's home.

The principal moved his head from the light, allowing both Mendou and Ataru to see without the glare in their eyes. He stroked his chin. "In fact, I am particularly curious who is best among them. They are all excellent in their own areas, athletic, kind, exotic, powerful… but who is the best overall? Which girl is… is…?"

Ataru smiled and then snapped his fingers. "… Miss Tomobiki?"

The Principal pounded his fist into his palm, as fire illuminated his shifty eyes. "Miss Tomobiki, of course!"

He stood up. "Who of our beautiful students is the greatest?! Miss Tomobiki shall answer this question!"

Ataru was quickly swept up in that fire, and Ataru threw himself to his knees beside the Principal. "Principal, I burn with your passion!"

Mendou was feeling the burn too. With the Principal on board for the contest, there was no way the Crusader–or Nick–could find it suspicious! This went better than he thought it ever would!

Moroboshi had delivered without being outright asked to, and now all he needed was for the girls to buy into it, and in the schism that their competitive nature would open… he would find his opening.

He just had to hope that they would buy it.

 **|Life at the Top|**

The Crusaders' base of operation was a former club storage room for Tomobiki's Body Improvement Club. With that club disbanded because they all lost in an instant to a wiry wimp like Moroboshi, it had become the nerve center and break room of the school's official disciplinary organization. Equipped with computers, drone controls, closed-circuit television screens, video game consoles, a couch, and a full-sized fridge, it was the perfect place to monitor the school and slack off.

As it was lunch time, there was certainly more of the latter.

"My, Sakamura folded over on the first punch, wasn't he a like a martial artist or something cool like that?" Natsuko asked as she shared lunch with Ran. With no physical activity going on or any high emotions in general to be had, she was rather pretty once again.

"Oh, he's one of those poseurs," Ran replied, "He tried to be like that guy from that one anime, the one who's always perfect at everything?"

"You mean the only man worth dating?" Natsuko asked, and both girls laughed.

Lum was sitting with Shinobu, who was studiously observing the CCTV monitors. As Shinobu's grades were considered the best of all of them, she actually spent most of the time in the Crusaders HQ, studying or following classes along via the security cameras. It was an almost natural arrangement for her.

"Good, nothing happened while we were doing the sting," Shinobu said with relief.

Lum was staring at her phone, reading with wide and somewhat horrified eyes a website about serial killers. Specifically about a man named Ng. "Uh… th-that's nice, Shinobu-chan."

Shinobu looked over and then at the phone. She then made a face. "Lum, what the heck? That's vulgar!"

"I can't help it, I thought humans would never ever want to speak about stuff like this, but serial killers are basically treated like… like popular monsters in movies or villains in anime. They're real people, who've done awful things to people, but they're _liked."_

She shivers a bit, thinking about Ataru and his impulses. "I wonder if people think this is something that could happen to Darling. Becoming one of these-"

"That's what everyone fears, yeah," Shinobu said, cutting her off from potentially uttering the curse that would do just that.

The door swung open and Ryuunosuke stormed in with a bento in hand. Stomping over to the couch, she passed Natsuko and Ran before dropping herself onto the cushion at the end.

"Ryuunosuke-chan, are you okay?" Ran asked as Shinobu and Lum turned their attention to her as well.

"I'm a little pissed off," Ryuunosuke replied.

Natsuko huffed. "Oh, what could possibly have our captain upset?"

"Sherman, he thinks I'm not ready to move up in training." Tearing the lid off her bento, Ryuunosuke began stuffing her face with sushi Nodoka prepared for her.

"You're not?" Ran asked. "Ryuunosuke, you're so strong!"

"You think I don't know that? I've knocked enough heads together throughout my life to say it's a fact! Still, he has the nerve to say he's _disappointed in me?_ What the hell is that shit supposed to mean? What does he want me to do?" Ryuunosuke demanded.

Natsuko muttered under her breath. "Maybe show a little humility?"

But not low enough under it. "What was that Mariah? I didn't hear that shit you tried to talk about me."

Natsuko's fury appeared all over her face as she snapped her gaze to Ryuunosuke. Mariah, a nickname coined by the manga-reading Ryuunosuke after shotgunning all of a certain Bizarre manga about Stardust Crusaders, was something that Natsuko didn't tolerate from her. "I said maybe you should show some humility, Dudechick!"

Ryuunosuke stuffed a california roll into her mouth. "Why don't you demonstrate for me? You're used to being face-down in the dirt."

Before Natsuko could lob one right back, Ran held up her hands. "Ryuunosuke-chan, Nat-chan, please let's not fight. We had a big win today, there's no need to start venting at each other."

"She's right," Lum said.

Ran glared at Lum, how dare she try to butter her up with such false praise?

"You're both very strong for humans, and you should be both proud of it," Lum went on. "I think Sherman-sensei is crazy for not training you harder."

Shinobu was of a different opinion. "I think he just doesn't know what to do with you. You are the strongest girl I know, Ryuunosuke-chan, I don't think any teacher would know what to do with you."

Natsuko was offended. "She's not stronger than me."

Ryuunosuke gave Natsuko a nasty smirk. "I'm a better fighter than you, to boot."

Natsuko pointed at her. "You are not stronger than me!"

Ran sighed. Stopping these two from fighting was like trying to get karma to catch up with Lum.

Ryuunosuke continued rudely stuffing her face. "Do you _really_ want to test that hypothesis of yours?"

Natsuko rolled up her right arm's sleeve. "If I could I would, Dudechick. You would be on the ground."

"You would be _under it!"_ Ryuunosuke shouted at her.

Shinobu got up. "Okay, both of you knock it off! We're supposed to be a team here!"

"Yeah!" Lum agreed. "Ryuunosuke, start acting like the Captain!"

Ryuunosuke and Natsuko glared at each other, before they pulled away from the edge. The latter girl sneering as she looked away. "Five minutes, five _seconds_ and I'd destroy her."

"You'd get wrecked harder than your face gets when you're playing your shitty volleyball," Ryuunosuke sniped back.

Ran had to physically hold Natsuko back as she went full-on demon head. "I WOULD END YOU, DUDECHICK!"

Shinobu groaned and dropped back into the chair, before turning back to the CCTVs. They just weren't going to stop anytime soon, not as long as they couldn't just have it out. One of the rules Nick established in creating the Crusaders was that members couldn't fight each other. Sure, they could bicker and yell and do whatever it took to resolve their differences… but the catharsis of a knock down drag out slugfest was outside their reach.

Before she could lament to Lum the futility of nonviolent conflict resolution in Tomobiki, her eyes were drawn to several reoccurring sights on nearly every screen. Crowds of students were gathering around a sign posted on the bulletin board on every floor, and they were all taking turns writing X's on each sign.

"Eh? Captain? Something's going on," Shinobu said.

She then saw at the Second Floor bulletin board that Ataru, Mendou, and the Principal were all together and Ataru was talking to the crowd. "Yeah, and Ataru's involved."

"Darling?" Lum was pulled away from her phone and frowned when she saw him. "He's up to something."

Ran welcomed the distraction from inner tensions. "Let's go see what's going on. It wouldn't be right for the Crusaders to be left out, would it?":

Natsuko and Ryuunosuke agreed. Giving one another a dark, parting look, both got up and headed for the door, donning their red arm bands and out into the hall. Ran got up, and sighed in relief, before trotting out after them, while Lum and Shinobu trailed, exchanging worried looks.

Out in the hall, they sure enough found Ataru making his pitch.

"Now, now, ladies and gentlemen, it's fairly easy to see that just by this initial polling that we have a tight race," he said, "But polls are bullshit until we see the main event! So don't start despairing that your favorite girl is not at the top of the popularity listings!"

A student raised his hand. "Question, what will the competition consist of?"

"Good question! Naturally this contest will determine the skill, cunning, looks, strength, and talent of our competitors. A panel of experts and you the audience will be the judges of our Miss Tomobiki," Ataru answered.

"Miss Tomobiki?" Ryuunosuke asked, causing the group to jump and look towards the Crusaders, who were all standing in a row with their captain front and center. "What are you up to now, Moroboshi?"

"Yes Darling, what is this?" Lum demanded.

Ataru quickly put his best foot forward. "Ah, and here come the ladies of the hour themselves!"

He hurried over to Ryuunosuke and looped an arm around her, and then his other arm around Natsuko, pulling them close to him as he led them over to the sign posted at the board. "If you're so curious, you need only to look upon the bulletin board!

Ataru was quickly clubbed and knocked across the hall, crashing into the wall as both Ryuunosuke and Natsuko stared at the board. As they were joined by Lum, Shinobu, and Ran, both tough girls made pretty much the same face of anger. The sign in question listed all five of the Crusaders, and a vote tally for the "Popularity" portion of the contest known as "Miss Tomobiki."

Lum held a solid lead of 13 votes, whereas Ryuunosuke trailed at 8, Shinobu and Ran were tied for 6, while Natsuko came in at 4.

A write-in for Sakura had her at 7. And another write-in for a third year named Yuria got 5.

"MOROBOSHI!" Ryuunosuke shouted as she whirled to face him, her face red. "WHY ARE THE CRUSADERS THE COMPETITORS FOR THIS MISS TOMOBIKI CONTEST?!"

"I DIDN'T SIGN UP TO BE OGLED AT BY A BUNCH OF SISSIES!" Natsuko likewise bellowed.

"Oh relax, girls!" Ataru reassured them. "This is all in good fun! The school is curious you see, they want to see who of our five best girls, who is… the best!"

Both Ryuunosuke and Natsuko stopped breathing fire and asked together: "The best?"

"The absolute best," The Principal said. "It's no question that our dear Crusaders, through Sherman-sensei's insightful scouting, are the cream of Tomobiki's crop. However, I am not satisfied with the five of you being best."

Mendou picked it up from there. "There has to be no doubt at all in anyone's mind. Of you five, we must know… which is the best girl in the Crusaders, the best girl in all of Tomobiki High School!"

Ryuunosuke had a flicker of insight. Something stank about this, something stank _fierce_ , especially if Ataru and Mendou were both involved in it. The Principal's enthusiasm in it was throwing her off, though. Was this a legit contest or some kind of shenanigans?

"I dunno…" She looked over towards Natsuko, and found that she was suddenly giving her a pretty, yet definitely smug smile. " _Son of a bitch."_

"A contest to determine best girl?" Natsuko asked sweetly. "Why, that just sounds _swell."_

She looked over towards Lum, Shinobu, and Ran, and sure enough they two were completely taken in by their rankings.

" _Why is Ran-chan so far behind Lum?"_ A furious Ran shrieked in her head as she glared daggers at Lum, who was rather flattered by her high score.

"Six votes is okay, I guess," Shinobu said. "I'm just behind Sakura-sensei in popularity…"

They'd all been roped in just like that.

"Hey, and the best part is that there will be a prize!" Ataru said to Ryuunosuke.

Ryuunosuke snorted. "And what would that be?"

If he said a date, she was going to smack him-

"500,000 yen! Courtesy of our man Mendou here!" Ataru revealed.

Ryuunosuke, Natsuko, Lum, Ran, and Shinobu all whirled upon Mendou. "Five hundred thousand yen?!"

This changed… everything!

Mendou nodded. "Such a prize is of no difficulty for me to provide. I'd gladly hand out a million yen to each of you-!"

"Yeah, yeah, can the poetry," Ataru said before he smiled. "So what do you say, ladies? An exhibition to show your stuff and find out who is the best of the best?"

"It sounds like fun, honestly!" Lum chimed in, mainly because she was pretty sure she'd win. She had all the perks of being the most popular member of the Crusaders going for her, after all.

"I'd love to give it a try!" Ran said cheerfully, before darkly adding to herself. " _And crushing Lum will be a breeze! Hahahahahaha!"_

Shinobu shrugged her shoulders. "500,000 yen could buy a lot of equipment for the Crusaders' room…"

Natsuko was nowhere near altruistic. In fact, the only thing she could think about was beating Ryuunosuke so bad that the dudechick would remember her place and put some damn pants back on.

Ryuunosuke could still smell that something was fishy about this. But at the same time, 500,000 yen wasn't a thing to sneeze at… and in the name of jolly competition, a chance to put Natsuko in her place was an overwhelming temptation.

"You know what? Sure, what's the worst that can come out of it?" She asked.

 **|What indeed?|**

"Miss Tomobiki, huh? Kind of annoying that I didn't get let in on this celebration of all that is girly at the school." Nick said to Ryuunosuke as she walked in through the front door. She found him lying on the living room floor with his head in Nodoka's lap as she brushed his completely unbound hair.

Ryuunosuke dismissed his complaints. "Maybe the school doesn't want you sticking your nose in every little thing, you are still just an English teacher and 'enforcer' after all. On the other hand, you weren't even there to hear it."

"That's fair," Nick said, "I took my lunch here at home and the Missus didn't want me to leave after I got her appetite worked up."

"Darling!" Nodoka squeaked in embarrassment before she bopped him on the head with the brush.

Ryuunosuke made a face. "Your disgusting sexcapades are none of my business."

"So, do you remember what I mentioned earlier?" Nick asked as he sat up so Nodoka could be more vigorous with the brush.

Ryuunosuke huffed. "Don't worry, I haven't forgotten. In fact…"

"Yes?" Nick asked.

"I'm going to show you how ready I am tomorrow," she declared.

"Oh, well good," Nick said as Ryuunosuke began up the stairs.

"I just need a bathing suit," she said back.

"Ask Kurama-chan," Nodoka suggested, "She has all sorts of skimpy clothes, and you are about the same size."

Nick couldn't help himself. "Though not for long."

Ryuunosuke made another face and reached the top of the stairs, where she found Kurama sitting on a bed in one of the spare rooms, watching Netflix on a tablet. Looking up, Kurama regarded Ryuunosuke with a nod, before she went back to Netflix. With a dismissive shrug of her own, Ryuunosuke marched on to her bedroom.

Back downstairs, Nick shook his head. "Tomorrow's going to be bad."

"Oh?" Nodoka asked.

Walking home from school, Shinobu was lost in thought about what she would do with that five-hundred thousand yen. While she wasn't confident in her ability to break past the popularity of the likes of Lum and Ryuunosuke, she knew she had her appeal in being studious, kind, and well-organized.

Besides, if she knew Ran and Natsuko as well as she did by this point, the two of them would hurt both the popular girls' chances through dirty tricks or straight out making them look bad. Sure, it wasn't the most honorable way to win, but she was just a normal girl in a school full of monsters, she told herself, she had to use whatever means she could to come out ahead.

She then stopped, and then looked at her right hand. "Who am I kidding?"

She closed her eyes and sighed as she kept walking. Shinobu wasn't delusional or stupid, normal was a relative term. Everyone knew she had that freak strength when she got angry, but more than that, just reviewing her life showed that she was anything but normal.

Shinobu grew up with Ataru most of her life, and dated him right up to the point of realizing that if he wasn't going to change his ways for an alien princess who wore next to nothing and flat out worshipped him, what chance did she have of curbing his impulses?

She's rubbed shoulders with billionaires, had lunch with sea monsters, listened to the poetry of demons, and even traveled through time once or twice. Miyake Shinobu wasn't normal and as much as she tried to convince others that she was, she knew it was just empty denial.

"I'm not a normal girl," she said to herself, "But I'm not a monster."

This contest was going to be proof of that. She was going to win fair and square, and maybe show the others just how wild and crazy they were by comparison.

"My Crusaders are all excellent," Nick said to Nodoka. "Each member brings something to the table that the others need. The problem is though, none of them really grasp that yet."

As an alien like Lum, Ran lived in a large spaceship she kept well hidden out of the public eye. Here aboard this large pink and yet shockingly inconspicuous UFO, she freely did away with her uniform and the majority of her cutesy demeanor. Dressed in what amounted to thin strips of silver fabric, Ran stomped through her ship, all but breathing fire.

"Oh, that Lum! She thinks she can just coast through this competition like everything else in life!" She ranted. "She never gets in trouble, everyone loves her, she even gets in the Crusaders without enduring anything like I had to!"

She stomped into the spacious bridge of her ship and flopped onto her bed. Laying on it, she screamed into the cushions before lifting her head. "Hmph! If she thinks that she's going to win… then she has another thing coming."

Ran chuckled darkly, already a plan was forming in her head to not only ruin Lum's chances at winning the competition, but seriously damaging her position in the Crusaders. Though… she'd at least be popular with the boys!

Nodoka, sitting on Nick's lap, hummed appreciatively as he rubbed her shoulders. "It could be worse then, couldn't it?"

"It will be worse, because these girls are tragically thick. They don't realize how powerful they are, and on top of that, they can't respect the dangerous world around them."

Bathed in sweat, Natsuko leaped straight up and slammed her hand into a volleyball suspended from a tree in her modest suburban home's back yard. She'd been at this since she got home, practicing her spiking training. For the sake of intensifying it, however, she was wearing a weighted vest, and similarly weighted armbands and leggings–a total weight increase of 200 kilograms.

"Stupid!" She yelled as she landed again with a heavy thud. Against the strain of her weights, she leaped again as the ball swung back down and smashed it again. "Stupid!"

Hitting the ground again, she nearly buckled under the weight, but held herself up despite it. Panting, she looked up at the swinging ball high above her head and heard the strain of leaping up to hit it whisper to her to give up and call it a night.

It was easy to ignore, by just envisioning the ball had Ryuunosuke's stupid pretty face on it. Bristling, she leaped up again, and with a scream smashed the ball into the stone wall that surrounded her home. "STUPID!"

She crashed back to the ground, her feet leaving deep indents, and rested her hands on her knees. "D-damn it…"

Her expression one of hideous anger, she stared at her feet as sweat poured down her brow and dripped from the tip of her nose.

How dare Fujinami Ryuunosuke take her so lightly? From the moment that sad excuse for a girl showed up, Natsuko despised her; if there was one thing she hated more than men were women who acted like them. The dudechick was especially infuriating, because it made her popular, with both men _and_ women!

The Volleyball team disbanded after she showed up, the girls that made it up drawn away to spend their time in the dudechick's cult of fans. The first and second year girls who admired her for her stand against the idiocy of the boys in this school all forgot about her and flocked off to get all lezzy over her, all cuz she was strong like a guy, but had femininity.

What about her femininity, damn it? What about her strength?!

"WHAT DOES THAT STUPID MAN-GIRL HAVE THAT MAKES HER SO POPULAR?!"

With her scream she picked up the volleyball and slammed it into the ground. Bouncing off, the ball raced into the sky, struck a passing drone and sent it crashing into the ground nearby.

Natsuko watched the smoke billow up and sighed before she went over to the rack and picked up another volleyball.

Tomorrow, she was going to wreck Ryuunosuke in this competition, and remind everyone what a real strong woman was like–not some pretty girl who acted like a man!

"Stupid…!" She began climbing the tree to tie the new ball in place.

"I blame the atmosphere at the school, to be honest," Nick said to Nodoka. "There's nothing but navel-gazing, prurient escapism, self-righteousness, revenge, and good ol' fashion vapidness…"

He chuckled. "Was High School like this for you?"

"I never went, I met my first husband shortly after I left junior high school and settled down with him to have my son," Nodoka answered before she grew contemplative. "… I then spent the next sixteen years alone."

"It could be worse, couldn't it?" Nick asked, earning a pout from his wife that a quick rub of her shoulders made go away.

Ataru was in his bedroom, examining himself before a mirror–holding against his front the tuxedo he planned to officiate the Miss Tomobiki contest in. It was a rush job, but he was able to get one in such short order that it astounded him a little. Behind him, Ten was sitting on his bed, watching a boxing match on his laptop.

This did not escape Ataru's notice. "Hey brat, what are you watching?"

"Golovkin vs. Stevens," Ten replied.

Ataru turned around "Who vs. who?"

He stared when he saw that Ten was watching a boxing match, and cocked his head to one side. "When did you suddenly get interested in boxing?"

"Since none of your business," Ten replied before he leaned forward and stared. "Wow! How does he react so fast?!"

Ataru shrugged his shoulders. Boxing was a cool and manly sport and all, but it never really grabbed his interest. He was a pacifist after all.

"Little kids shouldn't be watching such violence," Ataru scolded.

"Every day of your life is violence, jerk," Ten snapped back.

Before Ataru could turn and make Ten's every day violence, Lum flew in through the window carrying a few paper bags. "Ten, Darling, I'm home!"

With a flash of self-preservation, Ataru pulled back from taking a frying-pan to Ten. "Oh, hey."

Lum pouted. "Just hey? You could be more welcoming to your fiancée."

Ten made a face, but continued watching the fight, or what could be basically a pale imitation of one. This guy Golovkin, was some kind of untouchable God of Middleweight Boxing.

Ataru attempted to brush her off. "I could also close my windows and board them up, but I don't."

He looked over at her packages, and decided to change the subject. "Getting all ready for your contest, huh? Why aren't you in your UFO for that? I am the contest master of ceremonies, you know."

Lum looked at her indicated bags, and then at him. "These aren't for the contest, I ordered these a while ago from some Earth catalogues. After doing a lot of study on Earth fashions, I decided that maybe I should give it a try."

Ataru found that a bit weird. "Earth fashion? I thought you were reading about serial killers."

"I can read about different things," Lum snapped at him, "And I've read plenty."

And not just about the fashion and serial killers, either.

She turned around and opened her dresser drawers. "And I've also gotten advice from people about updating my look. Like from Sakura-sensei."

Ataru gave pause. "You've been going to Sakura for fashion tips?"

She held up a folded up bundle of satiny looking fabric and then unfurled it into a pair of panties that were blue-green in color. Folding them up, she stashed them into her underwear drawer. Ataru saw this, and began to stare, as she pulled out a matching bra and put it away as well.

"Yes," Lum bent over, rooting through the bags to pull out and put away more salacious looking underwear, "It was very enlightening, Darling. I couldn't even begin to tell you all the advice she gave me."

"I'm more surprised she even talked to you, she hasn't even taken patients since the whole photo fiasco," Ataru said numbly as Lum held up what was most assuredly something not meant for everyday wear, and then put it away.

Lum rolled her eyes, wanting to offer choice words about why Sakura ought to not, but reminded herself that this wasn't about Sakura. "Well you know, I helped destroy all the pictures and set you on fire, so she was grateful."

Ataru scowled at Lum's mentioning of that, and then outright glared death at Ten when the toddler–still glued to the boxing match–let out a chortle. The little brat had better have been laughing at something funny on the computer…

"Durable as you are though," Lum said, "It really must've hurt to be on fire for so long."

"All of my clothes burned!" Ataru snapped at her. "I had to walk home in my boxers!"

Lum giggled. "Well, you looked good in your underwear so I was happy."

"And then Mom yelled at me and I-!" And like that all of the gears in Moroboshi Ataru's head jammed.

Did Lum.

Did Lum just.

Ten paused the video and slowly turned his head to look at Lum and Ataru, a stunned and horrified look on his face.

Without warning, Ataru had no idea what was going on. He was so far out of his depth, and so quickly, that he might have gotten the bends. He gawked at Lum, who was testing the elasticity of a thong between her fingers, before she put it away and glanced back at him.

"Have you been working out? Whatever you're doing, keep it up, Darling~" She said with a wink before going right back to her clothes sorting.

A shaken Ataru stood there, staring blankly at the back of Lum's horned head, his mind still stuck on the fact that she was openly and quite brazenly flirting with him.

"I'm going to be sick," Ten said as he closed the video player and flew out the window as fast as he could.

Finished putting her new clothes away, Lum got up and smiled. "Well, with all those packed away, I can go get ready for the contest."

She then floated over to him, her hands folded behind her back and her expression demure. "You'll really like what I've picked out for the contest, it's sure to win."

She circled around from his left to his right and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "See you in the morning."

Giggling again, Lum turned and flew right back out the window to return to her UFO, leaving Ataru still frozen in the middle of the room.

With a clatter, he dropped the tuxedo and brought his hand to his cheek. Lum had actually _kissed him,_ and… and… he barely felt a tingle as opposed to the usual voltage he got from her. He looked out the window, in the direction that Lum went, and then looked down at the floor, his entire body shaking.

" _What the hell is going on?"_

As she soared for her spaceship, Lum was overwhelmingly happy. This Miss Tomobiki contest wasn't really a concern to her, not when she could easily bend her beloved Darling into knots like she just did. Tomorrow, she would really knock him for a loop, and then she'd win for sure!

Nick hugged Nodoka against him, earning a happy sigh from her, and rested his chin on her shoulder.

"It will be worse, too," he said, "These kids while away their days stuck on themselves, having their adventures and their bickering, and it's so self-contained that the world outside their personal bubbles is as far away as the Oni homeworld is from Earth. They've experienced nothing of the reality of their situation, instead enjoying what could almost be seen as… a delusion."

Upstairs, Ryuunosuke looked at the clothes she had laid out for tomorrow. Her sailor fuku, a gi for any physical activity she'd have to do for the contest, and a bikini–because beauty contests had a swimsuit contest, right? She watched enough to know that.

It annoyed her that Nodoka was right, she and Kurama had almost the exact same measurements, but it did fill her with pride knowing that she was still filling out. Tomorrow she was going to make Natsuko shut up once and for all, and assert her place as leader of the Crusaders.

And Nick was going to see that she was ready for the next level.

"They won't break out of their bubble, they can't," Nick said to Nodoka, sounding almost sad about it, "But they won't have to."

"The world's going to pop their bubbles, isn't it?" Nodoka asked.

Nick nodded, and smiled. "That's absolutely right."

The next morning, as the students of Tomobiki High School left their homes for class, they were greeted by a gray sky and a dense fog that hung heavily above the streets, leaving the air chillier than they had expected. Still, excitement over a beauty contest couldn't be diminished by a spot of dismal weather, and as the students filed off to school, they were looking forward to a grand show.

Trailing behind the crowds of commuting youths, without being noticed at all, two more students brought up the rear. Two girls, one a Japanese beauty with long dark blue hair with a yellow ribbon tied at the end, and a tall, black-haired Chinese girl with piercing green eyes reminiscent of a wolf, strolled shoulder to shoulder.

The Japanese girl wore on her back a bamboo sword The foreigner's hands were tightly wrapped in bandages. These were not students of Tomobiki High School as their black high fashion sailor fukus suggested, but that wasn't going to stop them from paying a visit.

* * *

A/N: Whoops.


	6. Chapter 6 Part 1

Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Urusei Yatsura is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and AnimEigo. Support the official release, or don't… because _holy shit._

 **Sensei  
** **A Urusei Yatsura Story  
** **Chapter 6/6 Part 1**

 **|The Fog of War|**

When one had enough money, anything was possible. This was something Mendou Shuutaro learned from a very young age. Assembling a contest arena for a beauty pageant between five dangerous young women? Paltry. Organizing the music, lights, prizes, and judges in short order? Nothing. Ensuring perfection in all areas by hiring only the best in their respective industries? Less than nothing.

In one night, Mendou demanded perfection and received it. A miracle from God couldn't do what he could do with what amounted to him as pocket change.

Yet, as he descended to the school's front yard via parachute, he couldn't help but feel that something was grievously off. The thick fog was unusual, as was the chill in the air, but the ominous foreboding that came with it had him worried that some kind of shenanigan was in order and he hadn't been alerted to it.

He set foot on the ground, and quickly unharnessed his parachute. He liked bad omens as much as he liked dark, cramped spaces, and he wanted to get ahead of this one as much as possible.

"You there," he called out into the fog, promptly summoning several suited men wearing black sunglasses.

"Yes, Mendou-sama?" They asked as one.

"Any word on the other situation?" He asked.

"Saginomiya-sama has called several times since yesterday evening, and twice this morning. She is growing anxious as she's not yet seen proof of your commitment," the lead sunglasses wearing bodyguard reported.

"Inform her that due to a school function that the Crusaders may be delayed, but to have no fear," Mendou replied, "Our intelligence gathering on the school has determined that it's highly unlikely that the Black Rose would attack so soon after already doing so much damage."

"Understood," the lead Sunglasses said.

Sure, he had nothing to base it upon, but if he sounded official and spoke through channels then maybe the White Lily would get off his back for a little bit longer.

"In the meantime, do try to beef up security around here and at the Kolkhoz. Just… don't let father find out."

"Yes, Mendou-sama," the Black Sunglasses replied before they vanished into the fog.

With a sigh of relief Mendou turned around to walk into school. With that distraction held off for now he could focus on fracturing the Crusaders and taking his rightful position as their leader, and then he would give Saginomiya all the support she could ask for and more. She would throw herself at his feet, grateful for his heroism, and he would sweep her off hers as her charming prince-

"What's all this about Kolkhoz, now?"

Mendou recoiled from Nick, who he'd nearly walked into in the thick fog.

"Ah! Sherman-sensei!" He looked past him, alarmed that Ryuunosuke might be with him–but all he found was Sakura, holding a large convenience store coffee and looking as blasé as she had been since the photo incident. "… And Sakura-sensei?"

Sakura tilted her head in a polite nod and took a sip of her coffee.

Mendou was confused, Sakura should hate Nick, why were they walking together?

Nick took a sip of his own coffee. "We walk to school together, she knows this great café. Don't change the subject though, what's going on with Kolkhoz that's got them asking you for help?"

Mendou waved him off. "It's none of your concern."

"Sounds like it is, what with their Culinary department burning down the other night," Nick said. "Is there something you're keen on?"

Luckily it was rather cool out, Mendou didn't sweat easily. "I know no more than you on the matter. There are delinquents running around, but they aren't messing with us."

Nick nodded. "Great! Just in case though, let Ryuunosuke know about any updates. I tried warning her about that whole mess between Kolkhoz and Furinkan, but I don't think she listened to me."

He waved. "Anyway, gonna go get a good seat for the pageant."

As he walked away, he looked to Sakura. "Where do you plan to sit?"

"Actually, I'm a judge," Sakura said before the two fell out of earshot.

Mendou watched them fade out of sight, before he sighed and continued walking. His brisk pace to the steps of the school slowed when he overtook Ataru, who was staring blankly ahead with a confused look on his face.

"I hope you're ready for today, Moroboshi," he asked.

Ataru snapped out of his fugue and looked to Mendou. "Oh yeah! Sure am, I'm looking forward to seeing Lum in her–seeing the girls in their cute outfits for the contest!"

"Yes, I too look forward to seeing Lum in all of her glory," Mendou said before he stopped and rewound that. Did Moroboshi just-?

"Outta my way, sissies!" Natsuko shouted as she stormed past, knocking both Mendou and Ataru to the ground.

Mendou forgot all about that and looked after Natsuko with a wistful smile. "Ah, Natsuko is as fiery as ever."

Ataru got up and dusted himself off. "Mendou, before we get this started."

"What is it, Moroboshi?" Mendou asked as he rose to his feet as well.

"You got a plan for in case this blows up in our faces, right? Because if this backfires, they're gonna murder us," Ataru said, "All five of them."

And it would make what happened to Sakamura look preferable.

"Once they realize that they are five enemies without a lynchpin, they will seek a proper leadership," Mendou said, "And once I am that leader, this school will see brighter days."

"Yeah, just don't sic 'em on me, okay?"

Mendou had every intention to, at every opportunity. "Fear not, Moroboshi. I will remember you well for your making this possible."

A rumble in the distance made both boys stop and turn towards where it echoed from. It was followed by another similar sound, and then another. It was like distant thunder, or a fierce battle

Hearing it, and recognizing its direction, Mendou swallowed hard before he marched into the school building without another word. Ataru watched Mendou go, and before giving the sounds a worrying consideration, shrugged his shoulders and headed inside as well.

 **|Miss Tomobiki|**

The Miss Tomobiki Contest was scheduled to take up the entire morning. As such, every class was excused so that all students could attend in the gymnasium, where a ring was set up for the contest to follow. The bleachers were packed, the judges table at the side of the ring was made up of Sakura, the Principal, and Kotatsuneko, and Ataru was in the center of the ring acting as the hype man to get everyone fired up.

"Thank you students of all years and welcome! To! The Miss Tomobiki Contest!" Ataru shouted to the heavens, and earned a hearty applause. "For weeks you've wondered, and you will have your answer! Who of Tomobiki High School's loveliest, strongest, smartest, and most popular of girls is the one above all?! The number one! The very best!"

He pumped his fist as he held the microphone close to his lips. "Here, in the Tomobiki High School wrestling ring, these five beautiful women are going to give it their all! For 500,000 yen and the adoration of all you the students!"

If there was one thing to be said of Ataru, he knew how to work a crowd. Or at least Ryuunosuke thought as she leaned back against her corner of the ring. She was looking aloof to the cheering around her; much to her chagrin she had nearly all the first year girls in her corner and they were making the most noise for her.

Natsuko, Ran, and Shinobu were occupying other corners. Lum being the odd one out but able to fly was circling above their heads, stopping to bounce on the top ropes and wave to her adoring fans.

Ataru then pointed at the corner Ryuunosuke occupied. "Our first competitor! In the red corner, from Class 2-4! Our newest student and leader of the elite Crusaders Unit! Fujinami Ryuunosuke-chan!"

The cheering grew louder, with many of the first year girls shouting "Senpai!" as they waved to get her attention. Ryuunosuke just gave them a passing glance, and many of the girls swooned.

Directly across from her, in the opposing corner, Natsuko bristled at the cheering Ryuunosuke received. Behind her, she was actually getting booed from some of the guys in the stands. She recognized most of them too, members of Tomobiki's boys' volleyball team.

"Opposite her in the blue corner, from Class 2-7. Former Volleyball Captain and all around lovely looker, and too member of the Crusaders' team! Natsuko-chan!"

"You suck!" One of the boys behind Natsuko shouted prompting a few laughs.

Natsuko looked back at him, her expression one of incomprehensible rage. Without needing to say a word, she turned the heckler to ash, and turned her ire back unto Ryuunosuke–who was now smirking at Natsuko.

" _It hurts, don't it?"_ Ryuunosuke thought. " _Ah well, I hope you're good and mad, because if I know Moroboshi this contest is going to get physical and I need a good fight."_

As though she could read Ryuunosuke's mind, Natsuko accepted the challenge. " _I hope you're ready to resign from the Crusaders when I'm done with you!"_

"In the black corner! Hailing also from Class 2-7! The adorable, cheerful, and ever approachable Ran-chan~!" Ataru called out, prompting an even larger section of cheers for Ran, who happily waved to those adoring her.

"Ran-chan is so happy!" She called out. "I'll do my best for all of you!"

She then glanced back and up at Lum, who was circling around the other side of the ring. She smirked. " _Prepare to get creamed, Lum!"_

"In the fittingly chosen white corner, also hailing from Class 2-4! A best friend to everyone, Miyake Shinobu-chan! Let's hear it for Shinobu-chan everyone!"

Shinobu fidgeting a bit under the praise, was more concerned about the obvious tension in the ring. The looks that Ryuunosuke and Natsuko were firing at each other, those weren't good at all, and as she observed Ran's own deadly gazes in Lum's direction, she was beginning to understand that this wasn't a very good situation.

" _This isn't going to end well,"_ she thought as she began to wonder if this was being set up because of the fiercely clashing personalities.

"And finally, because you can't put baby in a corner… the star of our school from another star! Hailing from Class 2-4 and the Oni Homeworld…! Lum Invader-chan!"

"I'm number one! I'm number one!" Lum chanted as she flew over the crowds with her arms spread. As it was a rare occasion, she'd eschewed her uniform for her tiger print bikini, and the crowd was loving it.

"Lum's number one! Lum's number one!" The crowd chanted below.

Right behind the judges' table, Nick was enjoying his front row seat the only way a person as invested as he was in this contest could: texting at a rapid-fire pace and paying no mind to the blathering on of Moroboshi.

Beside him, Mendou was observing the proceedings with the confidence that everything was going to plan. Ran looked ready to kill Lum, Ryuunosuke and Natsuko looked prepared to tear one another to shreds, and Lum was the crowd favorite. By the end of this contest, Nick will be begging him to take a leadership position in the Crusaders, after watching the over competitive spirits in the ring tear one another asunder.

He sat back in his chair, looking composed and suave as usual. He was confident that today would go well.

"I can tell that you're fired up, so let's get this show on the road!" Ataru called out. "Between our five girls, only one can remain as our Miss Tomobiki! She must have all the qualities of an exemplary woman, from brains to brawn to beauty, and our first event will cover cognitive reasoning!"

There was a brief silence after that, before Ryuunosuke broke the silence. "Cognitive wha-?"

"He means a thinking game you monkey!" Natsuko shouted.

"Better a cute monkey than an ugly gorilla!" Ryuunosuke shouted back.

"Girls! Girls! Easy with the rivalry, and save it for the contest!" Ataru tried to edge in.

"Why are we even doing this boring brain crap! Let's get to the part where I win!" Natsuko shouted.

"The falling out the ugly tree contest ain't in the program!" Ryuunosuke answered right back.

"OH SCREW YOU, FUJINAMI!"

Ataru recoiled a bit, startled by the fire burning between the two girls. "Yikes. Ladies, ladies, calm down! It's a just a riddle, simple riddle!"

The five girls turned their attention to Ataru, who waved shyly to them. "You know? A little brain teaser, to get you gals relaxed. This portion of the competition you'll be judged not on the accuracy of the answer, but on the creativity. The best answer gets a full ten points on the board."

Shinobu indeed relaxed. This was going to be easy, cognitive reasoning? She could do that!

"Well spit it out, already!" Natsuko shouted at him, because she did not have an off switch, or any means to turn down the intensity, really.

"Testy!" Ataru snaps back at her, before indeed going to the question. "Okay ladies, imagine that you have just walked into a room that is six meters by six meters square and three meters high. There is a metal desk with a toolbox across from you with a standard set of tools inside and a scuba tank and equipment next to it, a full-sized bed to your left, and a sink and toilet to your right. The walls are all made of a thick and durable metal."

One by one, the girls began to put together the image of the room in their minds as Ataru created it.

"Besides the door, there are three other openings. A vent that pushes air in which is fifteen by thirty centimeters in size near the ceiling to the right, an outflow vent that is one meter by thirty centimeters on the left. In the middle of the floor, there is a heavy iron grate one meter by one meter across."

Ataru looked around to make sure he hadn't lost anyone, and he hadn't. "Now, as you enter this room, the door swings from the outside in closed behind you and locks. It's as heavy and thick as the walls behind you. My question is, ladies, how do you escape the room?"

Shinobu hummed. Since this was a riddle, she knew that the answer wasn't immediately obvious, but at the same time very simple. In fact, the answer was most likely in the question itself, but so much detail had been thrown in to obscure it. A smarter person would abandon the cruft of the riddle and go right to the main point… but what was it?"

Lum was far more impulsive than that. "I know what I would do!"

Reaching her hand into one of the cups of her bikini, Lum pulled out a small gray device. "I would use this to escape!"

Ataru looked at it, though his eyes were more lingering on her for that moment almost exposed breasts. "Uh, what?"

Lum grinned. "A ten second matter phaser! Trapped in a tight spot? You can use this to pass through anything! Only for ten seconds, though…"

"That's cheating!" Ran shouted.

Lum looked down at Ran a tad smugly. "Oh, and what would _you_ do, Ran-chan?"

"Like it's any question!" Ran declared. "Ran-chan would use the toolbox, take apart the metal desk, and use the pieces to wedge open the grate to the drain and escape through the sewers."

"Ooh, good answer, good answer!" Ataru congratulated both Ran and Lum, the latter of the two smiling a bit big.

He then looked to Ryuunosuke. "Ryuu-chan?"

Ryuunosuke shrugged her shoulders. "I dunno… smash down the door? It's not like I couldn't."

This earned cheers from fans of Ryuunosuke's strength, and a scowl from Natsuko, who snorted. "Brute force, huh? I would block the drain with the mattress and the vents with the pillows and then smash the sink. I would then wait for the room to flood, use the scuba tank to wait for the water pressure to force open the door."

That earned a few questionable looks from the audience, and a hum from Ataru. "A high risk answer… very daring, Natsuko-chan."

He then looked to Shinobu, who was still contemplating her answer. "Shinobu-chan?"

Shinobu went over every detail of the riddle, and took the answers of the others into consideration. After a short moment, an epiphany struck her, and she looked back at Ataru.

"I stop imagining," she said.

Ataru stared at her. "Huh?"

"I stop imagining the room, and now I am no longer in it," she said.

Silence then fell on the arena.

The judges, who had been regarding the answers of the other girls rather lukewarmly, all did a double-take when they heard Shinobu's answer.

"Oh!" Lum found the answer surprising, but when she thought about it… it was the best one. "Shoot! I could've had that!"

Ryuunosuke was more impressed than upset. "Huh, wish I thought of that!"

Ran agreed that it was a good answer, but was satisfied with her own. While Natsuko seemed to be mentally kicking herself over the fact that she hadn't thought of it.

"Judges! Your decisions, please?" Ataru requested.

In her seat, Sakura smiled for the first time in weeks and put down her score. An equally impressed Principal and Kotatsuneko did the same, and when the scoreboard lit up, the numbers said it all.

Ryuunosuke 4.

Natsuko 5.

Ran 8.

Lum 6.

Shinobu 10.

"Six points?!" Lum exclaimed in dismay.

" _Haha! I beat Lum!"_ Ran thought triumphantly

Shinobu pumped her fist and did a cute cheer. "Yes! I did it!"

"THERE YOU HAVE IT! With ten points, our leader is Shinobu-chan!" Ataru called out to the crowd, cheering growing over it.

A spotlight shone down on Shinobu, who blushed brightly and waved to her adoring fans.

"The next portion of our contest will be the swimsuit competition!" Ataru declared next. "The real show you've been waiting for, right guys?!"

Behind the judges, as the cheering and fanfare went on, Mendou observed with a nod. Now that the personalities were openly clashing, this was all going very well.

The bluetooth earpiece he wore then began to beep, he was receiving a phone call. Feigning adjusting his hair, he took the call. "Yes?"

"We are receiving numerous phone calls from Kolkhoz Academy. Saginomiya Asuka-sama is demanding the Crusaders-"

Mendou sighed. "Did you not tell her?"

"We did but, the situation has changed," the Sunglasses answered. "Furinkan has-"

"Tell me about it later, I'm busy," Mendou said–half because he was trying to watch the contest… and half because he genuinely did not want to hear what was going wrong.

 **|Power|**

Outside of the school's front doors, the crew-cut leader of the Black Sunglasses, one of Mendou's longest employed and most trusted underlings lowered his phone, frowning. Beside him, his bald second in command leaned closer.

"What did the young master say?" Baldy asked.

"He is busy with the contest," Crew-cut said with a frown, "This isn't good."

In the last five minutes, Saginomiya Asuka and other members of the Black Sunglasses had been all but setting their phones on fire. Mendou's from nowhere assurance that the belligerent Furinkan wouldn't attack had been of course unfounded, as the thunderous crashes echoing from the distance proved. The Crusaders were needed, and they weren't being delivered.

"Maybe it's not so bad," Baldy wondered. "The young master isn't exactly leader of the Crusaders, and it's not like he can send them anywhere now. Besides, do you hear that? We should be happy we're not getting involved."

Crew-cut agreed. Fighting another school's war was never a good idea. Besides, if Kolkhoz was going to get as badly thrashed as it sounded, it wasn't like there was going to be any repercussions from them for Tomobiki's involvement or lack thereof. "Yeah, Furinkan's kids are monsters or so I hear… even one of them would be more than all of us could take."

Baldy recoiled a bit from that. "R-really?"

"Yeah, really… didn't you hear about what happened to the young master's rival, the Kuno boy?"

Baldy shook his head. "No, what happened?"

"Well, there was…" Crew-cut trailed off, when he noticed something at the fog-shrouded gates of the school.

Two girls, both wearing black sailor fukus. The shorter and Japanese of the two girls sporting a yellow tie, while the taller, foreign-looking girl's uniform sported an electric green tie. The shorter girl had on her back a shinai–a kendo bamboo sword–and was chomping down on a candy bar.

"Had to stop by the store on our way, huh?" Katie Izland asked as she exchanged texts with her uncle.

Akane Tendo chomped down on another piece of the candy bar. "It's early and I skipped breakfast."

"That's no good, you need to keep your energy up," Katie chided before she read what she was texting. "We've arrived and are commencing the armed intervention to suppress Tomobiki High School."

Baldy turned and noticed them too, before frowning. "Those two… are those Furinkan students?"

"Sure are," Crew-cut replied before he stepped up and gestured to the two girls. "All right, if you're here to visit, come another time. There's a school function going on."

Akane noticed the two men in black suits and sunglasses accosting them. "Bodyguards?"

"Those must be Mendou's guys," Katie said before glancing at the phone again. "Yep, black suits and glasses, general clueless look about 'em. Nick said we could wreck 'em at our leisure."

"Cool." Akane tossed her candy bar to Katie. "Hold this for me, Senpai?"

As Katie caught the candy bar, Akane reached over her shoulder and drew forth the shinai. Then without warning or even a battle cry she shot forward at high speed, swung the shinai into Crew-cut's face, smashing his sunglasses and dropping him like a sack of bricks. Before Baldy could react with fright, Akane swung the shinai about and up into his chin, launching his sunglasses straight up into the air and him into the wall next to the school's front doors.

The sunglasses fell down, Akane catching them above her head as she lowered the shinai in one hand. Without fanfare she put them on and resumed walking up the stairs, joining Katie who didn't stop walking as Akane assaulted the two men.

At the door, Katie stopped Akane and handed her candy bar back. Taking it, she noticed that there was a bite missing, and she shot a look at the taller girl. "… You…"

Katie just flashed her a grin, before she raised her foot and kicked open the doors with all her might. As the doors crashed open, two more of Mendou's bodyguards, who'd been having idle conversation whirled towards them, one of them quickly reaching in his jacket for a weapon-

Katie's knee crashed into the side of his head, and she launched him into the wall to her right as Akane's shinai lifted the second man with a direct hit to his gut and slammed him into the ceiling. By the time he slipped out of the indent he made in the ceiling and fell back to the floor an unconscious heap, both girls were already taking a right and walking down the long, empty hallway.

"I hope it gets better from here," Akane said to Katie.

"I don't, to quote the greatest love of my life: seal-clubbing is _always_ fun," Katie replied.

* * *

A/N: Living in this 21st Century, doing something mean to it…


	7. Chapter 6 Part 2

Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Urusei Yatsura is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and AnimEigo. Support the official release, or don't… because _holy shit._

 **Sensei  
** **A Urusei Yatsura Story  
** **Chapter 6/6 Part 2**

 **|Boiling Over|**

Shinobu couldn't help but wonder if a swimsuit contest was even appropriate, but given it was Tomobiki High School she came to accept it as par for the course. What she couldn't accept was the fact that she got a changing room to herself while the two pairs of intense rivals were expected to change with each other. What she accepted even less was that she could hear their bickering through the vents connecting the room.

"Stop imagining it is the _best_ answer? That's a stupid answer!" Natsuko griped aloud as she all but tore off her school uniform. "What was the point of all that other crap?!"

On the opposite side of the room, her back to her, Ryuunosuke was similarly undressing, trying to ignore her griping but failing as Natsuko's inability to do anything other than _bitch_ was that annoying.

"It's a trick question, it's not supposed to be easy," Ryuunosuke growled.

Natsuko glanced back at Ryuunosuke, and upon seeing her bare back she snapped her gaze forward again. "Hmph, least my answer wasn't 'hurr durr I'mma smash it'."

"I _could_ smash it, since I'm strong, you know?" Ryuunosuke pointed out.

Natsuko made a foul face. "You are intolerable."

Ryuunosuke took offense after stripping out of her underwear. " _I'm_ intolerable? The girl who actually got jeered at by the _boys of this school_ is saying that?"

Not caring that she hadn't started dressing, she turned to face Natsuko. "I'm sick to death of your shit."

Natsuko glanced back at her rival, but kept her eyes averted when she realized Ryuunosuke was accosting her while totally nude. "My shit-?!"

" _Your shit!"_ Ryuunosuke cut her off. "It's bad enough you gotta be on my back all the time like you're anywhere near me–but you go on and on about how much you hate men, like you're either a lesbian or trying really hard to hide you're a closet slut! What the hell is your problem?!"

Damning Ryuunosuke's nudity, Natsuko whirled around and got up in her face. "What. Did you. Just call me?!"

Ryuunosuke drew back, halfway between a smirk and a sneer. "What pissed you off more, slut or lesbian?"

At the way her face became a darker red, Ryuunosuke figured it out. "I'm gonna go with lesbi-"

And then suddenly Natsuko had her by the throat and slammed against the wall, her other hand drawn back into a fist. "You're the lesbian, you macho butch dyke! Dressing up like a boy and getting all the girls to like you! That's you, Fujinami! That's YOU!"

And then Natsuko was off her feet and on her back, slammed down by Ryuunosuke who effortlessly escaped her grip and whipped her around for the throw. Her bare foot cracked the concrete floor as she stomped next to the other girl's head.

Staring at her foot in a stunned silence, she looked straight up at Ryuunosuke, who was staring down at her with a face full of thunder. "You don't know me or my life. Talk that smack again, and I'll make sure that ugly face you do is permanent."

With that catharsis out of her system Ryuunosuke turned around and began to dress up in the swimsuit Kurama provided her. In effect her usual attire, a one piece with a plunging front provocatively held closed by laced string, and it fit snugly on her. Looking at herself in a mirror against the door, she looked sexy in this! Something that lightened her mood a bit.

" _I'm not a boy, I'm not a crossdresser, I'm a chick damn it,"_ she thought as she heard Natsuko rise to her feet behind her. No one was going to take that away from her, and no one was going to say otherwise about her.

Natsuko wasn't even sure if she could hate someone more than she hated Fujinami Ryuunosuke at this point. The fact that she was so easily put on the floor by Ryuunosuke turned what anger she had into full on hatred.

It wasn't fair. How could she just be _better_ than her at everything? She went from being a popular bastion against the perverts and the losers in this school to completely overshadowed by Fujinami. Unpopular with the girls, hated by the boys… she just twisted in the wind while this sad excuse for a girl Fujinami became everyone's hero.

It wasn't fair.

On the other side of Shinobu's room was Ran's room, and she was hard at work making some modifications to a swimsuit. Lum's swimsuit, not hers. A stealthy little snip of the front of her bikini was really all it needed, Lum's flying and bouncing around would do the rest at the worst possible moment.

Flopping her udders out in front of everyone was certified to destroy Lum, there'd be no escape from that humiliation!

Ran looked towards the door. Where was Lum, anyway? She couldn't exact her revenge if she wasn't there for revenge to be exacted upon!

Lum opened the door then, prompting Ran to bolt to her side of the room. Lum seemed quite chipper about something as she floated over to her vanity and removed her bikini top and bottoms. Ran looked at her undressing and shook her head. "Why do you even bother changing to a bikini when you're already in one?"

"Because everyone's seen me in my tiger bikini," Lum replied like it was the most obvious answer.

Ran disregarded that as she began to get dressed. "What took you so long, anyway?"

"I was getting my bikini out of my locker," Lum replied.

"Oh, you were–your what?" Ran looked back again, and her eyes grew large when she saw what Lum was putting on.

"Ran, I left a decoy bikini for you to ruin because you want revenge for everything I did to you when we were kids. I never stopped knowing that," Lum said as she slid on bikini bottoms that to a strip of black fabric held up by gold chains instead of string. The top was similarly held together with gold chain, and barely covered half her breasts.

Picking up a black-striped yellow bathrobe, she quickly pulled it on and turned to glare at Ran. "I know that's why you joined the Crusaders, too. So you could bully me."

Ran recoiled from her. "L-Lum…?"

Lum advanced towards her. "I'm not stupid, and I'm not gonna let you have _your_ way."

Ran pushed up against the wall, Ran stared at Lum like a cornered animal with no way to defend itself. Her mind was racing, how long had Lum been sitting on that, letting her humiliate herself?!

Instead of attacking her with her electricity as Ran feared, Lum just gave her a friendly smile. "But we're friends, so I'm not going to hold it against you."

With that, Lum turned and floated on out the door. "See you on stage!"

Ran palmed her face, her teeth practically grinding. Was Lum really treating this like a game?! Like it was nothing?!

"This is my revenge you twit! I'm not gonna lose to you!" Ran shouted as she began dressing in a star-printed one piece.

Back in her changing room, Shinobu stared in disbelief at the vent she heard Lum and Ran's exchange in. She had always figured Lum and Ran's relationship to be odd, but with everything she just heard, it all made sense. Ran was an alien… an alien with a history, too.

" _She's been keeping it a secret too, but why?"_ Shinobu wondered.

Well, if Ran wanted to keep it a secret, Shinobu wasn't going to blab about it. She had so much more to be worried about.

Wearing her own modest one piece and a robe over it, Shinobu left her changing room and found Ryuunosuke and Natsuko leaving theirs, Lum a bit ahead of them, and they were all wearing robes as well. Ran emerged from the changing room after, and all five girls made their way back to the wrestling ring in a tense silence.

Shinobu, looked around and shook her head. This wasn't right, the tensions were higher than ever. If something didn't happen to ease it, the Crusaders could end up in an all-out brawl right there in the ring.

Out in the wrestling ring, as the students eagerly awaited the arrival of their competitors, Mendou was speaking with Ataru at ringside.

"Locking up the rivals together in changing rooms, huh?" Ataru said. "That's actually pretty diabolical, Mendou."

"The idea of women fighting doesn't appeal to me, but what was done had to be done," Mendou replied. "The more their rivalries flare up, the more they will be willing to abandon their oath as Crusaders so as to best one another. They are much like men in that sense…"

Ataru snorted. "Even when you put it like that, it sounds sexist."

"I am a feminist, thank you!" Mendou snapped at Ataru.

Ataru's eyes damn near rolled out of his skull.

"I want to make sure, is everything ready to go for the next event?" Mendou asked.

Ataru turned and nodded. "Sure is. After the swimsuit portion we have the Swimsuit Technique portion. The Tomobiki Zoo was extra generous in handing these guys over to us–apparently they are extra aggressive, antisocial, and have a taste for human blood."

"Even the Gorilla?" Mendou asked, well aware of the species' herbivorous nature.

"Nah, he just wants revenge for Harambe," Ataru explained.

"Don't we all?" Mendou asked.

Both young men shared a moment of solemn silence, and it was in it that Mendou realized something: His men, who had been pestering him over the phone nonstop since the contest began… were now not.

"Huh," he said aloud.

"Huh what?" Ataru asked.

"Oh nothing, I've been getting phone calls all morning, but now they stopped," Mendou said, " _Finally."_

In the main part of Tomobiki High School, one of Mendou's last remaining Black Sunglasses, bloodied and broken, reached with a trembling hand towards his smartphone. His fingers barely reached the edge of the phone, when the tip of a shinai came down on the face of the phone, smashing it.

The hopeless Black Sunglasses looked up at the two girls who looked down over their shoulders as they walked past. As Akane lifted her shinai off the phone, Katie brought a finger to her smile-curved lips, giving the Black Sunglasses wearer some very important advice.

Back in the arena, Nick chuckled as Mendou sat down next to him. "Oh my God, she's live-tweeting it. What kind of girl did I raise?"

Sakura looked back at him. "You're a father?"

Mendou couldn't believe that a man as slimy as he could be one either. "Tell me you're joking."

"Of course I'm a father, eight beautiful children," he said before he laughed a bit, "And at least two more on the way."

Mendou recoiled from him, shocked. This man was lying!

Sakura, however, could believe it.

"Congratulations, Sherman-sensei," the Principal said, quite surprised to hear this news himself.

Kotatsuneko however stared at Nick with a puzzled expression. _At least_ two?

"But no, I'm actually talking about my niece," Nick said, "She's a strong and proud girl about your age… she likes to fight and she's been tweeting about a new scrap she's in right now."

Mendou leaned to look at the phone, but Nick pulled it away. "Excuse you."

"I only wish to see this niece of yours," Mendou said as he attempted to look again, and Nick easily evaded it.

Nick locked the screen. "You can wait."

Ataru was already attempting reach from Nick's blind spot to swipe the screen to unlock it, when Sakura conked him on the head.

"And so can you," Nick said to Ataru as he pocketed his phone in his shirt.

"You can't just mention that you have a potentially cute niece and then hold out on us looks-wise!" Ataru accused him, before he pointed at Sakura. "And why are you helping him?! He literally violated your privacy and humiliated you!"

Sakura just stared blankly at Ataru, and then hit him again. "Go back to officiating."

While Ataru begrudgingly withdrew, Mendou was almost petulant at being denied a glimpse at a possibly pretty girl. Sensing this, Nick gave Mendou a small smile.

"Oh hush, there are plenty of pretty girls showing up right now," he said as he pointed to the ramp leading from the changing area.

Sure enough, the boys in the stands (and a few girls) were in cheer for the arrival of The Crusaders, who all made their way down to the ring and back into it. As they returned to their corners or flight patterns, Ataru was back to getting the crowd fired up again.

"Now for the part you guys have been waiting for! The swimsuit competition! Where we can get a solid look at the beautiful forms that our Crusaders possess!" He called out.

The crowd was extra loud then, the entire building trembling from the excited cheers. While Lum was quite happy to bask in their adulation, Ran was once again glaring at her, while Natsuko was on the verge of going full demonhead at Ryuunosuke–who was concerned more with Shinobu's somewhat subdued expression.

"One by one, our girls will bare it all, and we will decide by the audience who has the best swimsuit!" Ataru declared.

At the judges table, Sakura folded her arm. "This is demeaning, they don't even want to be here except for Lum."

"They look half ready to start fighting each other," Nick observed.

Sakura looked back him. "That's the idea, isn't it?"

Mendou looked from the circling Lum to Sakura, surprised that she could say something like this. He was even more surprised when Nick declared:

"Of course it is, using my Crusaders' quirks to make them fight each other was actually a pretty good idea, Mendou," Nick said to him.

Mendou suddenly backed up a seat away from Nick, a bluish shade appearing on his face. "W-what?"

He figured it out? Sakura figured it out?! No, he couldn't let them see that they were right-

"If you could see it what makes you think anyone else couldn't?" Sakura asked.

Nick added, "I've worked with them for a couple weeks now, and it's obvious that Ran hates Lum, Natsuko hates Ryuunosuke, and Shinobu is sick of them all being bickering idiots. Something like this would only make those personalities boil over… so it makes perfect sense that you and Moroboshi would be behind it."

Mendou's heart sank, he had been found out, but he wasn't going to go peacefully into the night! "If you are so aware of my machinations, then why have you allowed them to happen?"

"All right, all right come on down Lum!" Ataru said, "It's time for this show to get started!"

"Of course, Darling!" Lum replied as she landed in the ring beside him.

Ran boiled, despising Lum's arrogance even hotter.

"Three whole reasons, Nick said. "The first one being that I didn't even know about it until a little after school yesterday–you are fantastic at logistics by the way. The second one being that the Principal wanted it to happen so I was overruled even if I wanted to protest. Lastly, Ryuunosuke is desperate to prove that she's ready to kick it up a notch in her training. She bet that she'd win here to do it."

"Oh," Mendou said, surprised that Nick wasn't going to enact some kind of violence here.

Ryuunosuke, leaning against her corner, looked towards Nick then and narrowed her eyes. She couldn't focus on Natsuko or Shinobu or anyone else. If she got distracted, that was it. She needed to win here.

Natsuko glared at Ryuunosuke, her feelings galvanized. She was going to make sure that Tomobiki's Tomboy walked out of here a loser sissy like all the other guys.

"Still, the only thing you've really done is made sure they were all in one place when _it_ happens," Nick said.

Mendou raised an eyebrow. It? "When what happens?"

"The end of the Crusaders," Nick said as he turned and looked up the ramp the girls came down.

Mendou followed his gaze, and then did a double-take right before the color began to drain from his face.

Ataru was hamming it up. "Lum you are lovely as a sunflower and twice as bright! Are you ready to face the music?"

"I'm ready to make the music!" Lum replied happily.

Shinobu shook her head at Lum's excitement. Was she that oblivious to the real tension that was building? It was a little frustrating to see her so cheerful when everyone else was not. As she turned to look away from it, she stopped and stared.

Ran, glaring hard as she can at Lum, then looked past her to see Shinobu react to something and looked as well.

Ataru laughed a kind of fake, showy laugh, before he noticed that Lum had started looking up the ramp. "Okay then, let's get started with…"

Natsuko looked over, and then Ryuunosuke. Soon, every head turned towards the end of the ramp.

Standing there, looking none too ruffled despite the resistance to their trek here, were Tendo Akane and Katie Izland–two of Furinkan High School's Student Council Chairmen.

 **|The Eyes of Heaven|**

The cheering audience had ebbed down into a cacophony of confused and questioning murmurs. Every eye was on the two girls who walked in, and then began walking down the ramp. Akane was staring directly at the ring, her eyes darting to each of the five girls in it as well as Ataru. Katie was more preoccupied with her phone, rapidly texting with both hands while occasionally glancing up to make sure she didn't walk into anyone or anything.

"Who are those babes?" One of the boys in the impossibly large crowd of students asked as they stared at the two girls.

"I don't know, but those classy uniforms, they look like they're from Furinkan!" A girl answered.

"Wait, like Furinkan High School, where that monster girl goes?!" Another boy said in a panic.

"Dude, I think that's her!" Another boy shouted with rising fear, pointing at Akane's back as she walked past.

The Crusaders one by one and wholly confused by the appearance of the two girls made their way up to ropes to look down on the two girls. Katie finished texting, and slipped her phone into her pocket before zipping it up. She then looked back up at them.

"Yo," Katie casually greeted.

And then Ataru was directly in front of her. "Hey there yourself, tall, pale, and gorgeous!"

Katie immediately recoiled a bit from him, her every fight or flight instinct tripped. " _What the hell?! This guy's weird!"_

"What's your phone number? Email? Twitter handle? Bust size?" Ataru asked.

"You are ten pounds of nope in a five pound bag," Katie said before Akane held her shinai between Ataru and Katie. Her hair was covering her eyes, and the rest of her face held a neutral expression.

"You must be Moroboshi," Akane said, before Ataru was hugging her.

"You've heard of me? Wow, I didn't think such a pretty girl would even know about lil' ol' me," he said. "Tell me, what's your name cutie? Your email? Your bust size?"

"Tendo Akane," she replied without looking at him, as she began to shimmer in a blue battle aura.

Then the strangest thing happened. Ataru extricated himself from Akane and retreated all the way to the ring, plastering himself to it with a look of complete terror in his eyes.

Ryuunosuke's eyes widened. "Tendo Akane… the girl who…"

"The girl who beat up over a hundred boys simply because they wanted to date her," Shinobu murmured, disbelieving that someone like that would come to a den of scum and villainy like this.

Katie found that amusing. "Is that what they say?"

Ataru pointed at Akane. "What are you doing here? Have you taken away all the manhood at your school, and have come here to take ours?!"

"We can only hope," Natsuko sniped. Inwardly, though, she was completely starstruck that Nerima's greatest man-hater was here in Tomobiki. Who knew what kind of carnage they were about to unleash on the sissies and perverts gawking like idiots at them all.

She found out, when Akane lifted her head up, ignoring Ataru and staring at the Crusaders, specifically Lum. "We came here to fight you."

That derailed Natsuko's violence-fueled fantasies just a tad. "Hey wha-?"

Shinobu recoiled a bit. "Fight us? What did we do to you?"

Katie smirked and cracked her knuckles. "It's nothing personal, we're just making sure you stay out of our way."

That caught Ryuunosuke off-guard. " _Out of their way?!"_

"What do you mean in your way?!" Ran demanded.

Mendou immediately stepped forward. "Ladies! Please, esteemed visitors from Furinkan there's no need for violence-! T-Tomobiki High School has no quarrel with you-"

Katie shot her hand forward and caught Mendou by the collar of his uniform. Pulling him close, she looked him dead in the eyes as she spoke. "Bullshit you don't. You and Saginomiya started this little schoolyard tiff, and we're ending it."

" _Saginomiya?"_ Shinobu thought when she heard that.

She then discarded Mendou to the side, as Akane crouched and then leaped into the air, passing over the Crusaders and landing in the center of the ring. She then lifted the shinai up high and brought it down to point at Lum.

"So, let's do it!" Akane shouted.

Instead of waiting for any of them to attack or protest, she shot forward. Thrusting the shinai for Lum, only to have her attack blocked by Ryuunosuke–who imposed herself between the two of them.

"I don't know why you're after us, but if it's a fight you want then here it comes!" Ryuunosuke shouted as she knocked aside the shinai and lashed out with a high kick for her face. She hit air, as Akane went low and used the end of the shinai to knock Ryuunosuke off her footing.

" _What?!"_ Ryuunosuke thought as she suddenly felt the world slip from underneath her.

She landed with a thud and looked up to see Akane's shinai coming down. Rolling out of the way, she avoided the strike but the force of the blow still sent her nearly spilling out of the ring.

Catching herself, Ryuunosuke dug her fingers hard enough into the hard mat to warp it before she flung herself at Akane. Tightening her grip on the shinai, Akane thrust for Ryuunosuke, who parried the weapon away from her face.

As she tried to close in and punch her, Akane swayed to the right edge of her field of view, the shinai she held suddenly disappearing from view. Not for long, however, as it then emerged from the right homing towards her left cheek.

" _What?!"_ Ryuunosuke leaped away, blindly swiping at the air to ward off Akane's shinai.

Shinobu didn't understand what she was seeing either. One moment it looked like Ryuunosuke was going to land a hit, but the next the Furinkan girl was attacking her and forcing her to flee. It was as if entire instants in the fight had been suddenly cut out.

As Ryuunosuke stopped her stagger, she found Akane rushing straight for her, practically gliding just above the mat as she prepared to thrust the shinai for her chest.

" _She's fast…!"_ Shinobu thought before a bolt of electricity landed near Akane, forcing her to stop her attack.

Electricity charging up her body, Lum unleashed a mighty zap that Akane hopped away from. Generating another zap, she fired and missed Akane again as she hopped in a different direction.

Natsuko rushed forward, fire burning in her eyes. Now was her chance! She was going to show up the dudechick once and for all. "I got this!"

Going in head-on, she suddenly darted left, moving straight to Akane's unguarded right flank as she dodged a zap aimed at her left. As Akane turned her head to look towards Natsuko, she was already throwing a palm thrust straight for her chin.

A funny thing happened to Natsuko then. She missed.

"Huh?!" Natsuko said aloud when she realized that Akane had just simply moved out of the way of her attack.

"Head!" Akane shouted, right as her shinai connected with the top of Natsuko's head, dropping her face down into the mat so fast that she bounced off right back to her feet.

Lum let out a gasp from the violence of the blow, while Ran and Shinobu outright recoiled.

Her voice caught in her throat, Natsuko could barely let out a strangled sound as she tilted backwards–then lost all the air in her lungs when the shinai's tip ploughed into her solar plexus.

"Body!" Akane shouted, before she shoved forward just a bit more and threw Natsuko into the ropes.

To her surprise, when she came off the ropes, she landed on her feet and managed to stay on them. Albeit, she was clutching her stomach and wheezing for a breath she could not catch as she did.

"Natsuko!" Ryuunosuke shouted when she saw the state that the attack had left her in.

Her vision blurry from her tears, Natsuko dry-heaved as she stared in disbelief at Akane. " _W-what… what in the world…?"_

She felt light-headed. " _How did she hit me s-so hard? I… I can't move… c-can't catch my…"_

With a brief cough, Natsuko collapsed to the ground, not unconscious but completely stunned.

Akane stared at Natsuko for a moment more, before turning to face the other Crusaders. "Hm…"

"You bitch!" Ran suddenly roared in a bestial tone as she rushed straight for Akane as she reached inside her robe and pulled out an alien looking pistol. Taking aim she fired at Akane a purple ray of light that went on to hit several students in the stands and encase them in purple, ice like crystals.

When she fired again, Akane was already out of the way of the shot, which froze more students. As Ran turned to fire again at her fast moving target, it suddenly changed direction with such speed it was as though she vanished.

The shinai then clapped down on Ran's wrists, forcing her to drop her pistol. "Wrist!"

Ran looked down in disbelief at the shinai, before it came up to meet her chin, lifting her off her feet and sending her onto her back. As Ran hit the mat, Akane jumped away from an even more incensed Lum's zaps.

"Ran!" Shinobu shouted as she rushed over to where she and Natsuko both laid, heedless of the lightning bolts.

Mendou got up, staring in disbelief at what he was seeing. "She's already beaten two…?"

Ryuunosuke was similarly shocked. " _How does she move like that? It's like she can predict our moves even before we make them! It's almost like!"_

A cold dread then swept through Ryuunosuke. "It can't be…"

As another zap narrowly missed her, Akane stopped and faced Lum, who was circling around.

"Lum! Back me up!" Ryuunosuke shouted as she launched into a flying kick that Akane blocked with the shinai.

Rebounding off it, Ryuunosuke shot forward with a barrage of punches that Akane quickly used the shinai to block or parry. Ducking low under a return strike of the shinai, Ryuunosuke raised her arm to deflect a thrust aimed for her face.

Taking advantage of Ryuunosuke's diversion Lum attacked, firing accurate zaps that forced Akane to break away and hop about to avoid them.

After avoiding four of the zaps, a fifth deliberately missed to throw off Akane's cadence and leave her open to another flanking attack from Ryuunosuke, this time an uppercut that Akane spun away from to avoid.

" _The way she can predict movement, it's just like when I first fought him!"_ Ryuunosuke thought as she narrowly avoided another strike from Akane aimed at the side of her head, who herself was impressed.

"Hold still!" Ryuunosuke shouted after her spin-kick missed. Akane slid back and came to a stop at the ropes nearest where Katie stood. Two zaps aimed at her feet threw off her footing a bit, and her attention darted up and down between the increasingly angry Lum and Ryuunosuke.

" _She's actually good, better than Shampoo!"_ Akane assessed as unlike Shampoo Ryuunosuke was able to avoid the quick shots to her head, torso, and wrists–though her ability to counterattack was probably worse as she only had openings to attack provided by Lum–though her timing with Lum's was tightening, getting better as they progressed instead of worse.

Still, it was something for Akane to be proud of. She could fight multiple opponents with this form!

"They're good," Akane said to Katie without taking her eyes off her opponents.

Katie leaned against the edge of the ring and chuckled. "Cute, too."

"Senpai, really!" Akane exclaimed before she dodged more bolts.

As Akane hopped and skipped to avoid Lum's attacks, the silent students began to get back into the fight, with a single voice chanting Lum's name.

"Lum! Lum! Lum! Lum! Lum!"

Other students began to join in, chanting louder and louder as Akane was kept on the defensive by the bolts.

When Ryuunosuke charged in again, narrowly following the rain of electricity to attempt to catch Akane off guard, more students began shouting her name as well.

"Ryuu-chan! Ryuu-chan! Ryuu-chan! Ryuu-chan!"

Blocking the shinai strikes as quick as she could, Ryuunosuke shot in close and fired off sharp jabs that Akane quickly defeated with her shinai, before a spin kick forced her to jump and backflip into the corner.

"Yeah! You got her on the run!" A student shouted as Akane landed, cornered by the two Crusaders.

At the edge of the ring now, Mendou could only watch helplessly as the momentum finally began to swing in Tomobiki High School's favor. " _They're working together… this is how they can win!"_

Ryuunosuke finally had Akane where she wanted her. " _You're cornered now! Let's see you escape this!"_

This being Lum who was wreathed with electricity, and ready to unleash a shower of zaps on Akane's corner. With the ropes in the way and her position overhead, there was no way she was going to escape!

"You're gonna pay for hurting Ran-chan and Natsuko-san!" Lum shouted as she unleashed a very powerful zap that brought bolts down on Akane like a showering rain.

The bolts rained down on Akane, who held up her shinai and began blocking each bolt with the rubber tip of the bamboo blade. The sunglasses shielding her eyes from their brightness, she was able to connect her shinai to every bolt, harmlessly. The last bolt she swept her shinai through, scattering it into arcs that crackled above her head.

Nick hummed in interest, whereas everyone else beheld it with disbelief. None as disbelieving as Lum herself, though Ryuunosuke came very close.

"She… she deflected all of those zaps…" Ryuunosuke muttered.

Lum floated back a bit, wide-eyed with a growing panic. She had the same questions, but the more pertinent question was what did she do now? Her zaps didn't work, what else could she do against this opponent?

"That was the strongest zap I ever saw Lum do!" Mendou gasped. "How did she…?!"

Nick answered aloud. "What does Heaven have to fear from the lightning that falls from it?"

Ryuunosuke looked over towards Nick. "Heaven?"

She looked back towards Akane again, then back at him. "That… that was Heaven?!"

"The girl's certainly gotten a taste of it!" Nick said, impressed.

Ryuunosuke stared at Nick, then turned to Akane. "You can use it? Heaven?"

"More or less," Akane said as she readied her shinai.

Ryuunosuke clenched her teeth. "More or less?!"

"I'm still learning it," Akane admitted.

Ryuunosuke shot forward, Akane met her charge and blocked her punch with the base of the shinai.

"From who?!" Ryuunosuke shouted at her.

"From me," Katie said as she grabbed the bottom rope, and pulled herself up onto the ring. Lifting the top rope and pushing down the middle, Katie climbed into the ring and joined Akane's side.

Ryuunosuke stared at Katie, and her gaze was immediately drawn to the foreign girl's green eyes. She then remembered the photograph Nick showed her as proof of his involvement of her early life, with the woman she bore a strong resemblance to–right down to the eyes she shared with Nick. "You're related to Nick."

"It's the eyes, isn't it?" Katie asked. "They're really strong in my bloodline, my Mom has them and so does my Uncle."

Mendou looked at Nick. "That's your niece?!"

Nick nodded. "That's her, my only niece and my most prized student."

Ryuunosuke's eyes widened as she began to size up Katie.

"Trained her since she was four years old, for thirteen summers, and one or two winters–depending on if there was a war or not."

" _Since… since four?"_ Ryuunosuke thought in fear, before she arrested that fear and quickly shook her head. "So you're saying she's good?"

Nick put it succinctly. "Why don't you find out?"

* * *

A/N: Oops.


	8. Chapter 6 Part 3

Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Urusei Yatsura is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and AnimEigo. Support the official release, or don't… because _holy shit._

 **Sensei  
** **A Urusei Yatsura Story  
** **Chapter 6/6 Part 3**

 **|Children's Crusade|**

To the side of the confrontation, almost forgetting it in fact, Shinobu had managed to help get Natsuko's breathing under control, and was stirring Ran from her unconsciousness. The redhead had taken such a bad hit, and didn't seem so martial artistically inclined, so there was a frightening chance that the girl had a concussion.

"Ran speak to me, are you okay?" Shinobu asked as she gently stirred her.

"Hn… haa…" Ran's eyes fluttered open, and then shut quickly. "… Head hurts… lights too bright…"

That sounded like a concussion. "Ran stay awake, okay?"

"Need…" Ran said as she held up her hand. "N-need…"

"Need what?" Shinobu asked before Ran felt the side of her head, and then grabbed the back of it, pulling her down into a kiss. "MPH?!"

Flailing for a moment, Shinobu tried to break free but was released instead, and Ran sat up panting heavily in anger.

"W-what the…?" Shinobu asked, before she suddenly felt very tired and weak. "What did you…?"

Ran ignored her, as she turned and glared towards the confrontation on the other side of the ring.

Ryuunosuke took a deep breath, and steadied herself. Now, more than ever before, she needed to be focused. This was the person that Nick was offering her to become like, so she needed to show him that she was ready to raise her training to the next level.

"Akaneko," Katie said, "Take a breather. I'm taggin' in."

Akane pouted. "I can handle them."

"I know you can," Katie replied with an edge to her voice, "But I want to push Nick's new project to the edge."

The pout vanished, as Akane quickly recognized the atmosphere and withdrew her complaint. "Oh! Okay then, senpai."

"Besides, watching this has kind of pissed me off," Katie then admitted.

Ryuunosuke took the greatest of offense to that. "Oh I'm sorry we haven't entertained you one bit!"

"It ain't about entertainment," Katie said as she stepped towards the center of the ring. "It's about why we're here, and you being completely clueless about it."

Ryuunosuke and reined in her anger. She needed to keep her eyes on the prize. Becoming stronger was on the line here!

As Katie walked over, Ryuunosuke expected her to beckon her approach and start the fight. With that in mind, she attacked first before her opponent could attempt being showy. Pushing off in a lunge, by her second step she accelerated to full speed and leaped into a spinning kick that Katie braced her arms to block.

The force of the blow caused the ropes to wobble and the entire mat to creak and groan as the energy of the blow traveled through it.

Katie then grabbed Ryuunosuke and threw her to the floor, ripping off her robe in the process. Recovering in mid-fall, Ryuunosuke landed smartly and flipped back from Katie, shaken by how powerfully she'd been blocked.

" _I hit her harder than I hit Kurama…!"_ Ryuunosuke thought, stunned..

"That's it?" Katie asked. "What is this bum even teaching you?"

"Hey!" Nick called out indignantly.

"It's not it!" Ryuunosuke shouted as she charged in and feinted left, then right, then left again before firing a right cross for Katie's face.

Katie caught her fist and batted it aside, and then received an uppercut for her troubles, another feint hidden within the last strike.

"Yes!" Lum shouted when Katie's head went back from Ryuunosuke connecting with her chin.

Ryuunosuke's face, however, did not reflect the triumph. " _She…!"_

Her blow had in fact missed by a shaved down hair, and now she was open to a counterattack.

Instead of a clobbering blow, however, she was merely pushed back from Katie. Staggering to a stop, Ryuunosuke stared in disbelief at Katie–who lowered her head and shook it.

She then looked towards Nick. "Hey asshole… what the hell are you teaching this girl?!"

She then pointed at Akane. "Akaneko figured the basics of Heaven out in a few _days!_ This girl's still flailing around like a god damned amateur!"

Ryuunosuke stilled, and looked over towards Akane. " _D-days…?"_

"And I fought a guy even better than her," she went on, "These girls aren't fit to fight the assholes back in Oregon! What are you teaching them?!"

" _Days?"_ Ryuunosuke was still stuck on that revelation.

Nick stood up and walked over to the edge of the ring. He then leaned against it much as she had, and gestured around. "Look around, kid. This is what I have to work with here."

Katie looked around, seeing the Crusaders, then Mendou, then the fearful and silent students of Tomobiki. Nick then rested his hands, one over the other, on the ring.

"Out of all five of these girls, one's an alien and the rest are pretty much the best the school has to offer. I mean, I'm pretty sure that there are some guys in this crowd here who might be good–but you'd never know. There's a warped chivalry here that means that even if one was trying to kill them they'd never lay a finger on a woman."

He glanced to his left at Mendou. "Isn't that why you're not trying to protect any of these girls you adore?"

Mendou made a face like someone had force-fed him curdled milk.

"The girls themselves? They work together and can put up a good fight–but when your opponents _refuse_ to fight back how can you really measure your skill?"

Natsuko looked over at Nick when he said that, she then looked back at Katie and Akane. Katie's expression was continuing to darken, while Akane was looking thoughtful by comparison. In fact, she was suddenly gaining a new appreciation for Furinkan High School–twisted as it was.

"The only student in this school who has any martial artist ability to be rightly tapped is right in front of you." Nick went on, gesturing to Ryuunosuke. "Had fate played out kinder than it had, she'd be beside you rather than facing you like she is now. Nevertheless, she's grown up fighting just like you, and has the basics and the fundamentals going for her. Her potential is every bit as good as your kouhai's there."

"Then why aren't you teaching her anything?!" Katie asked.

"Because she isn't ready," Nick replied.

" _I'm not ready…"_ Ryuunosuke found a voice in the back of her head agreeing. Her pride and her anger silenced that voice.

"So what?" Ryuunosuke growled. "I'm just not good enough?"

Nick shrugged his shoulders. "We talked about this."

Ryuunosuke ignored that, as she clenched her fists and let took a deep breath. "I will show you that I am good enough!"

Akane stared and watched with interest as a red battle aura began to manifest around Ryuunosuke. "Eh?"

As Ryuunosuke continued to breathe, the aura turned from red to yellow. "I will show you that I am ready!"

Katie stared at Ryuunosuke and shook her head. "For God's sake."

Ryuunosuke crouched down, and then shot straight for Katie, ripping the mat apart as she hurtled towards Katie.

Nick turned his head to look away.

Drawing back her right fist, Ryuunosuke yelled as she swung with all her might for Katie's face–and then came to a dead stop when Katie's fist rammed into her gut, folding her in half as she was lifted over the foreigner's head.

Directly above her, Lum was buffeted by the force of the blow and thrown back end over end towards the audience as the roof overhead buckled and the lights shining down on the arena shattered, filling the air overhead with a shower of sparks and falling glass.

As the sparks fell like the rain, Mendou stepped back from the ring, his eyes wide with horror. In the ring, Shinobu fell backward, her body unable to work as she watched Ryuunosuke dangle there in the air.

Katie stared at up at Ryuunosuke, and with a brief shake of her head tossed her aside. "Good grief."

As Ryuunosuke began her fall to the floor, Natsuko was already closing in on Katie, her own speed monumental as she jumped to kick the foreigner girl. Catching her kick, Katie swung Natsuko and threw her at Ran–right as she had taken aim with her recovered freeze pistol and had squeezed the trigger.

The beam struck Natsuko, freezing her in the block of crystal, which went on straight for Ran, who only had a split second to realize the error she made before she was hit and driven into the turnbuckle. On impact with Ran and the turnbuckle, the crystals shattered and the turnbuckle broke, sending both girls crashing into the crowd unconscious.

Then Ryuunosuke hit the floor with a thud and laid very still there.

"R-Ryuunosuke…" Shinobu sputtered as she looked from the the laid out Ryuunosuke to the unconscious Natsuko and Ran "… N-Natusko… R-Ran…"

Lum had recovered, and was now staring at the carnage below, visibly frightened. "What's happening…? Why is this happening?"

"I thought I agreed with my girlfriend when she said that seal-clubbing is always fun," Katie said, "But I guess I was wrong. There was no reason for us to even come here."

Akane nodded in agreement, feeling a mixture of disappointment and even guilt after witnessing this sad display. "Yeah, I guess not."

Then, to the Lum and Shinobu's disbelief, Ryuunosuke stirred. She rolled over onto her side, as she clutched her stomach.

"You… don't you just walk away…!" Ryuunosuke managed.

Katie looked down at her. "Unless you have something important to say, save your strength. We came here to fight you because we thought you were strong enough to be a threat. Turns out y'all are a bunch of kids."

Ryuunosuke opened her mouth to fire back, but stopped when the pain told her to.

"How can you say that?!" Shinobu then shouted at them.

When Katie looked at her, Shinobu had managed to get up onto her feet. "We never even bothered you! Why would you just come here?!"

Ryuunosuke tried to turn and look back at Shinobu, but couldn't move. She focused on Katie, who was now staring at Shinobu.

She seemed confused. "Huh?"

Akane looked at from Shinobu and Katie, then back again. "We're here because Mendou Shuutaro declared war on our school. Didn't you know that?"

So many emotions flashed across Shinobu's face at that moment, as she tried to comprehend what she had just been told. "… Mendou-san… declared war?"

And like that Katie went from pissed off to horrified herself. "Wait, you really didn't know?"

Akane covered her mouth, as the realization hit her as well. "Oh no!"

Every eye in the audience then fell directly upon Mendou Shuutaro, who was now white as a pillar of chalk carved in his likeness.

"Mendou-kun," Shinobu asked, "What are they talking about? Why are we at war with Furinkan High School?"

"We're at war? With those monsters?!" A student yelled in fear. "Are you stupid or insane?!"

Panic swept over the entire audience, as students who knew better–who plainly knew better began shouting that they were NOT at war with Furinkan High School. Many shouted apologies to the two girls from Furinkan, while others shouted that they had nothing to do with Mendou. Others even called for them to take Mendou.

Mendou somehow became whiter.

While everyone was offering Mendou up as a sacrifice, he was the very last thing on Ryuunosuke's mind.

" _Word on the street is that some delinquents from Rival Schools are on the verge of going to war. I'm not too keen on you kids and your gang violence, but for the sake of the school I'd keep ahead of that were I you."_

Ryuunosuke messed up. She messed up so badly.

She wasn't the only person thinking as much, as Katie turned towards the ring and vaulted over the rope. As she stalked over towards Mendou, the color returned to him and he recoiled.

"Please, wait, this is all a misunderstanding-!" He tried to say before Katie grabbed him by the face and lifted him off his feet.

"You're fucking right this is a misunderstanding!" Katie shouted. "What the fuck did you think this was when you decided that you were going to fight us?!"

Mendo grabbed her arm, trying to support himself and pry himself free. "P-please understand! I-I tried to back out! I didn't want to actually fight! It's just, it's just…!"

"You couldn't say no to a beautiful woman."

The dark auditorium lit up, casting Katie and Mendou in a brilliant light that shone from the doors. Standing there, as if the light was her own radiance, was the second child of the storied Kuno Family, Kodachi. At her side, Mousse stood, scanning the crowd as she stepped forward ahead of him, her heel striking the floor with a thunderous clack.

"Is that not why you easily bent to the whims of Saginomiya Asuka, Mendou Shuutaro?!" Kodachi shouted.

"K-K-Kuno Kodachi…!" Mendou sputtered before he was dropped to Katie's feet.

"Eh?" Katie asked, finding it curious that she'd be _here_ and not at Kolkhoz.

"Kodachi-sama," Akane said, "Why are you…?"

"Because I have no reason to bear witness to what I have already foreseen," Kodachi replied. "This is much more important."

Mousse then spoke. "Besides, if we had not, then this farce would have gone on for far too long."

He then tossed to Katie's feet a badly mauled Ataru.

Lum recoiled. "Darling?!"

She looked past Kodachi and Mousse, and found that behind him were five extremely powerful wild animals, a lion, tiger, bear, gorilla, and python. All of them had been so savagely beaten it was a wonder that any of them were still alive.

"Seems that one was trying to herd those animals in here to join the fight, but they decided he was a more amusing opponent. We offered them a better challenge, too great of one," Mousse said.

Mousse folded his hands in front, closing his sleeves together as he looked to his Lady. She looked down upon Mendou, who was rightfully on his hands and knees.

"I had expected to aid my friends against strong enemies, to be the support they dearly needed," Kodachi revealed, "But instead I find them tormenting helpless girls."

She sneered down at him. "And for what, Shuutaro Mendou? What did you have to gain from all of this?!"

Mendou stared up at Kodachi, sweat-soaked and overcome with everything from fear to sorrow to outright humiliation. He couldn't even form words to answer them, so Nick did.

"Given the evidence I've seen so far," Nick said, "It's because Shuu-chan here was kind of sad that he didn't become leader of the Crusaders like he thought he was going to be."

He then snapped his fingers a few times as he processed this. "In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the only reason he really committed to this whole goofy war business is because he thought he could use the Crusaders as a paper tiger to dictate whether or not there was a war at all."

"Like Butsumetsu tried," Akane realized.

Katie looked out the corner of her eye at Nick. "Then when he didn't become leader?"

"He was in a tight spot!" Nick said. "His very skeevy nature to bend to the whims of a woman in order to look good to her, more than anything, prevented him from letting Saginomiya-chan down. Since he knew a war _was_ coming, he decided to gamble it all on this competition to fracture my Crusaders and then reform them with him on top."

Bringing a hand to his bearded chin, he stroked it as he puzzled it over. "Honestly, had he more time? It probably would've worked but… something changed everything–didn't it, Kodachi-chan?"

Kodachi stared at Nick, and nodded slowly as something was confirmed behind her eyes. "Yes. Yes it did."

Shinobu could not believe what she was hearing. "Mendou-san… you… you…"

"YOU UNBELIEVABLE ASSHOLE!" Ryuunosuke had found her voice. She had climbed onto her feet, and was using the ropes to support herself.

"This… this is all your fault!" Lum shouted. "Mendou, you jerk!"

As the crowd heaped their abuse onto Mendou, Ryuunosuke sank down to her knees, cursing Mendou almost as much as she cursed herself. Nick had tried to warn her… Nick probably knew this was all going to happen! He all but told her it was going to, but she didn't listen. She would not listen.

 _Because she cared more about this stupid contest than she did about the world outside of the school._

"I was never ready," she whispered to herself.

Kodachi looked down upon Mendou again. "This is an embarrassment to all of us, and a monumental waste of time."

She then looked a little past him. "But we will not be leaving empty-handed."

Mendou stared up at her uncomprehending, before he noticed someone walk past him. His eyes widened when he saw that it was in fact Sakura walking up the ramp towards where Kodachi and Mousse stood. "What…? What is going on?"

Shinobu joined Ryuunosuke's side, as did Lum, as they and the rest of the school watched Sakura walk up the ramp.

Katie, nodding in understanding, began walking up the ramp behind her. With a graceful leap, Akane left the ring and landed beside her. As they walked past Ataru, his eyes cracked open and he followed their footsteps, his eyes widening when he saw that Sakura was with them.

"Sakura-sensei…?" Shinobu began to ask, before she stopped and fixed her jaw.

Lum looked at her. "What?"

Reaching the group, as students called to her, Sakura turned and faced the students of Tomobiki–her face a mask of dour contempt.

"Two weeks ago, I tendered my resignation as school nurse of Tomobiki High School, yesterday was my last day," she announced.

"Yesterday…?" Mendou asked, before he realized it. She had resigned the very day of their exercise with the photos.

"Effective today, I am now employed as school nurse of Furinkan High School," Sakura continued, as Katie and Akane nodded to Kodachi and turned to leave out the doors.

"This is the last time that I want to see any of you ever again," she said, before she turned and followed Katie and Akane out.

As one of the doors swung closed, Mousse held open the remaining door, and Kodachi turned away. "The war is over, Shuutaro Mendou. Goodbye."

She turned and walked through the door, and Mousse soon followed, the door closing behind him and casting the wrestling ring in a deep darkness.

As the confusion, disbelief, and sorrow began to turn into anger around him, Mendou stared at the doors of the arena. It was dark, and underneath the growing hatred of his classmates he was suddenly feeling trapped, closed in on all sides by their harsh words and shouting.

He was thankful though that they couldn't see him cry, because he was so scared..

 **|An Ending|**

The setting sun was particularly red as it shone through the smoke that filled the sky from the burned ruins of Kolkhoz High School. It was a sight to behold for Nick at least, as he stood on the roof of Tomobiki High School, the campus emptying out slowly as demoralized and betrayed students finished the lengthy cleanup ordered by the Principal, following the rampage of the Furinkan Hooligans.

He was on his phone, listening to it ring, before someone picked up.

" _Hello?"_

"Hey there sweetheart," Nick greeted.

" _Oh I wish you wouldn't say that kind of stuff to me. How're you doing?"_

"Pretty good, just had a hell of a day at school, Katie and her student came by, it was pretty intense!" Nick replied.

" _What happened?"_

"Everything," Nick said. "Sakura's gone, Mendou's been made the school pariah, and everyone is downright miserable. Especially the Crusaders, the Principal disbanded them entirely for utterly failing in their duty as guardians of the school."

" _Huh, you're okay with that?"_

Nick slid his free hand into his pocket. "Yeah, the Crusaders weren't the point at all. I wanted to see what she could do as a fighter and a leader–someone who had to step up. She didn't, and that was that."

" _She must feel horrible."_

"I haven't seen her all day, but I imagine she must," Nick replied. "No one's come out of this feeling good about themselves."

High above the city, sitting on the edge of her UFO, Lum watched the red sunset with a completely neutral expression. In her hand she held her phone, her finger hovering over the call button. The contact she was debating on calling was her father.

"Some have taken it worse than others," Nick said into the phone.

Aboard her own UFO, a bandaged up Ran watched the main monitor. Her expression was sour, like she'd spent all day raging and she just didn't have the strength to keep it going anymore.

She was watching the same clip, over and over. Miss Tomobiki, as captured by the school's film club.

"You're gonna pay for hurting Ran-chan-!"

She stopped it, and then rewound.

"You're gonna pay for hurting Ran-chan-!"

She stopped it, and then rewound.

"You're gonna pay for hurting Ran-chan-!"

A single tear ran down her cheek, as she stopped it, and then rewound.

"You're gonna pay for hurting Ran-chan-!"

"Some, a lot worse."

Sitting beneath her tree with her knees drawn to her chest, Natsuko just stared up at the red sky overhead. In her hands, she held a volleyball as she took a deep breath and swallowed not just one uncomfortable truth, but several.

With a grunt of anger, she tossed away the volleyball.

"When you told me to go here, and not Furinkan I wondered why wouldn't you want me there to help Katie train those monsters? Then after everything… I understood," Nick said, "I saw what you saw and it was was easier after that."

Shinobu walked home from school by herself, cursing to herself Nick and Mendou and almost everyone at the school. After all of that, they had been beaten up and humiliated because of… because of what?!

Sakura had the right idea. She didn't want to go back to that school, she didn't want to see any of those people again.

" _They need someone better."_

"They do," Nick agreed as the stairwell door opened and then slammed closed. Following some footsteps, he heard a clatter and the rustling of fabric. "Oh, hang on a second."

He looked back, lowering his phone, and found Ryuunosuke standing over her discarded Sailor Fuku–wearing once again the Tomobiki High School boy's uniform. She stared at Nick, her expression full of anger and frustration.

"I'm done," she said to him.

"You're done?"

Ryuunosuke nodded. "I'm done being your student. I was never cut out to be that person."

Nick looked down at the uniform, and then back up at her. "You completely failed, huh?"

"Yes, I completely failed," Ryuunosuke said, "I failed at everything! I couldn't win that damn contest, I couldn't fight that bitch with the shinai or your star pupil! I couldn't lead the Crusaders! I couldn't do any of that, you asshole!"

She pointed at him. "You were right! I wasn't ready! I couldn't be further from ready and now…! And now…!"

Stopping herself, Ryuunosuke looked down at her sailor fuku, her body shaking. "… And now I get it. I understand why you were so disappointed. So I'm done wasting your time, and mine."

Ryuunosuke turned around to leave, when Nick called after her. "Where are you going?"

"To find my old man," Ryuunosuke replied, "It's the best I deserve."

Nick shook his head. "Ah geez, stop being so melodramatic."

Ryuunosuke stopped.

"You failed, what does that mean?" Nick asked, before answering. "You know better now, and you won't fail like that again."

Ryuunosuke turned around. "What?"

"What do you mean, what? Didn't you hear a god damned thing I was saying? I didn't want you to tell me you were ready, I wanted you to show me, and what I'm seeing right now is a girl who _is_ ready. Someone who knows exactly what it's like to fail so completely and knows she can't do that again."

Ryuunosuke stared at him, before her eyes widened. "This… this was a lesson, this whole thing?"

It took her a moment, before she closed her eyes and sighed. "… Nothing prepares you for a real life situation like a real life situation."

"Great Scott, I think she's finally figured out how this works," Nick said sarcastically.

Ryuunosuke slumped her shoulders and hung her head. "I can't believe you…"

Nick drew his free hand from his pocket and picked up the sailor uniform, before offering it back to her. "Life ain't easy; if you want to get anywhere in it, you need to be ready to lose everything a few times before you hit your stride."

Staring at the offered Sailor Fuku, Ryuunosuke was reluctant to take it back. "A bet's a bet."

"Yeah, and you look really stupid in a boy's uniform so I'm letting you have it again," Nick said.

Ryuunosuke, seeing that this wasn't negotiable, reached out and took it. "Why are you being so kind to me?"

"I'm an asshole, but I'm not a monster," Nick said, "Well… not to family, or to people I consider that. You're a daughter I almost had, and I'm going to make up for lost time one way or another."

Ryuunosuke nodded, and pulled the sailor fuku close to her chest. "So… what happens next?"

Nick smiled. "First things first, tomorrow I start to teach you the basics of Heaven… and maybe some Muay Thai so next time you fight Katie you won't make an ass out of yourself."

Ryuunosuke nodded, and Nick gestured for her to get going. "I gotta finish a phone call. Get on home and get some rest, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Ryuunosuke said before she turned and headed back towards the stairs. When the door opened and closed, Nick brought the phone to his ear.

"You still there?" He asked.

" _Sure am, I just zoned out for a second. What happened?"_

Nick smiled. "She's back in my good graces. I'm going to start training her tomorrow."

"Oh, that's great! It's amazing how good you are with her!"

"I know, right?" Nick asked. "The old me would've never wanted kids or anything to do with them, now here I am with a family so big I'm kind of excited to hang it up and go home to them."

" _Don't be too distracted by that notion, or you won't ever get to."_

"I know, relax," Nick said. "I know what's at stake here."

" _Well, as long as everything's going well, I leave it in your hands."_

Nick chuckled. "Before I leave you be for the evening, I have a question."

" _What's that?"_

"If it all goes wrong, will you do it all again?"

There was a lengthy pause. So long that Nick actually turned to check if the call hadn't been dropped, before he received his answer.

" _It won't. No matter what happens next… I have faith that this is the last time."_

* * *

A/N: And with this, we close the book on Tomobiki for the time being. But they'll be back...


End file.
